Transmission Planning and Analysis
System Integration researchers at NREL are engaged in transmission planning and analysis as explained below.
Continued growth in electric loads results in the need to plan for and install new generators and transmission lines. Wind generation is a relatively new power source in the evolving competitive wholesale electric markets, so existing planning organizations need guidance and review of planning methods and assumptions when including wind as an option. Future utility resource plans and regional planning efforts need to include wind stakeholders in the overall process. We also analyze characterizations of potential wind resource locations and power delivery profiles that are critical to accurate assessment of potential transmission line upgrades or expansions. In addition, the reliability characteristics (e.g., capacity credits) resulting from wind and utility load temporal-profile matches have an impact on the valuation of wind from the planning perspective. Most of the foregoing can be handled by existing utility practices as long as the required data are known and realistic.
As a low capacity factor, variable resource often located far from load, deployment of wind energy is impacted by the FERC-driven transmission organizational restructuring processes, which are setting the stage for grid treatment of wind power into the future. Wind energy information and interests must be at the table in each region for both interim and future rule development processes. This is a major challenge for the entire wind energy community. The methods developed in other tasks must be presented and applied to specific grid rule-development processes in these venues.
