Abstract:

The anticipated increase in variable generation in the Western Interconnection (WI) over the next several years has raised concerns about how to maintain system balance, especially in smaller Balancing Areas (BAs). Given renewable portfolio standards in the West, it is possible that more than 50 gigawatts (GW) of wind capacity will be installed by 2020. Significant quantities of solar generation are likely to be added as well. The consequent increase in variability and uncertainty that must be managed by the conventional generation fleet and responsive load has resulted in a proposal for an Energy Imbalance Market (EIM). In prior work we examined the reduction in reserve deployment that would occur across the interconnection. In the proposed paper we extend this analysis to examine alternative approaches to estimate (a) the reserves that each individual BA would deploy, and estimate the value of the reserve reduction made possible by the EIM, and (b) compare this with the allocation of imbalance energy based on data from production simulations that were undertaken by E3. We compare results from these approaches and also discuss alternative reserve allocation approaches. We also examine the impact of alternative penetrations on each of these reserve benefits.