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Transmission

Hawaiian Electric: Christian Whitney

Byline: 

Christian Whitney

“In order for anyone to accomplish their sustainability goals or for Hawaiian Electric to accomplish our reliability goals, the future is all in the telecom and the technology.”
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At the Leilani Estates subdivision and nearby Puna Geothermal Venture plant on Hawaii’s big island, on May 3, 2018, volcano fissures appeared. Massive lava flow soon followed, devastating the subdivision and then the plant by May 27 and 28. Here’s a view of the area and the cooled lava.
Hawaiian Electric is working closely with Ormat Technologies to bring the Puna Geothermal Venture plant back online. Here, utility linemen are restoring a line to bring some power in for the reconstruction project.
When the PUF team visited in December 2019, our Hawaiian Electric friends encouraged us to pick up the cooled lava rock. The lava rock was eerily light belying its destructive power.
When the PUF team visited the Puna Geothermal Venture plant – or what remains of it after the volcano’s devastation – our friends from Ormat Technologies (the plant’s owners) showed us that fissures are still emitting gases into the air not far away at all. The plant, completed in 1993, had 38 megawatts capacity, sufficient to supply about a quarter of the big island’s electricity demand.
Author Bio: 

Christian Whitney is the director for pole infrastructure enterprise at Hawaiian Electric.

Category (Actual): 
The States
Transmission

Director for Pole Infrastructure Enterprise

Ti: The Transmission Line Inspection Robot

Byline: 

Andrew Phillips

EPRI developed Ti, a robot capable of crawling over conductor shield wires and harvesting power from ambient energy sources to support autonomous, high-fidelity condition assessment.
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A technician uses a bucket truck as he prepares to attach Ti to a transmission line. The robot’s diagnostic equipment includes high-definition cameras, LIDAR sensors, electromagnetic interference detectors along with data processing, global positioning, and communications systems.
"EPRI developed Ti, a robot capable of crawling over conductor shield wires and harvesting power from ambient energy sources to support autonomous, high-fidelity condition assessment." – Andrew Phillips
Ti traverses an energized transmission line during a mobility and endurance test run.
Author Bio: 

Dr. Andrew Phillips is director of Transmission and Substation Research at the Electric Power Research Institute. Phillips earned bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Category (Actual): 
Transmission

Managing Overhead Transmission Lines

Trading on a Knife Edge

Byline: 

Bruce W. Radford

Magazine Volume: 
Fortnightly Magazine - December 2012

A few months back, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission directed Deutsche Bank Energy Trading LLC to show cause why it shouldn’t be assessed a civil penalty of $1.5 million and be made to return some $123,000 in allegedly unjust profits from power trading in markets run by the California ISO.

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In referring the Deutsche Bank matter to FERC for possible enforcement action, the California ISO’s department of market monitoring found that DBET traders had established a pattern of circular trading, by purchasing power exports out of CAISO at the Silver Peak intertie node, moving them across Sierra Pacific Power transmission to the Summit node (the E-Tag dotted line), and re-importing the same power back into CAISO, to be wheeled back to the starting point, in a manner “inconsistent with ISO and FERC ma
This figure depicts a hypothetical combination of supply and demand bids that could’ve created a situation of “degeneracy” at the Silver Peak intertie node, by which the market-efficient, security-constrained, least-cost dispatch solution under the California ISO market tariff could’ve indicated not a single, unique market-clearing locational marginal price (LMP), but a range of prices, falling between the lowest-priced supply bid (import bid) and the highest-priced demand bid (export bid)—any one of which
Category: 
Commission Watch
Author Bio: 

Bruce W. Radford is publisher of Public Utilities Fortnightly.

Category (Actual): 
FERC
ETRM & Markets
Transmission

The Deutsche Bank case and the meaning of ‘price manipulation.’

Bill Hogan, Unbundled

Byline: 

John A. Bewick

Magazine Volume: 
Fortnightly Magazine - November 2012

A no-holds-barred interview with the electric industry’s chief architect of wholesale electric market design.

Category: 
People In Power
Author Bio: 

John A. Bewick is Fortnightly’s contributing editor and formerly was secretary for environmental affairs for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He holds advanced degrees in nuclear science and business management.

Category (Actual): 
FERC
ETRM & Markets
Transmission

A candid commentary on current topics in electric restructuring.

Bridging the Seams

Byline: 

J.P. Pfeifenberger, J.W. Chang, and D. Hou

Magazine Volume: 
Fortnightly Magazine - November 2012

With no single entity in charge, transmission planning has plagued projects that span multiple regions. A new framework offers a solution.

Image: 
Figure 1 - Building Blocks for an Effective Interregional Planning and Cost Allocation Framework
Sidebar: 
Sidebar Title: 
Cost Allocation Principles: An Expanded List
Sidebar Body: 

FERC Order 1000 listed six principles for cost allocation for interregional transmission planning. FERC’s list, however, could be expanded as follows:

1) Commensurate with Benefits: The cost of interregional transmission projects should be allocated to regions such that they are at least roughly commensurate with total benefits identified for each of the regions based on the benefits and metrics specified. Neither region should be allocated a share of the cost of an interregional project in which it receives no benefit.

2) Transparency: The application of cost allocation methodologies and identification of benefits and beneficiaries must be transparent.

3) Different project types: Different cost allocation methods may be applied to different types (e.g., reliability, economic, or public policy requirements) or different portions of transmission facilities.

4) Quantify and Monetize: The identified benefits should be quantified and, if possible, monetized based on all internally used and additionally specified interregional benefit metrics. Non-monetized and non-quantified benefits should also be recognized in the assessment of the overall reasonableness of proposed interregional project cost allocations.

5) Benefits at Least Equal to Avoided Costs: The regions should agree that the monetized reliability, load serving, public policy, or other benefit of an interregional project will be at least equal to the avoided cost of achieving the same benefit solely through cost-effective local or regional transmission upgrades.

6) Hurdle Rate: If benefit-to-cost ratios are used to assess the desirability of an interregional project to a region or the regions as a group, the benefit-to-cost threshold must not exceed 1.25.

7) Regional Net Benefits: Benefits to each region need to be sufficiently large so that each region’s share of benefits exceeds its share of costs consistent with region-internal benefit-cost criteria.

8) Internal Cost Recovery: The costs allocated to each region must be recoverable through the existing internal—local and regional—cost allocation process of each region.–JP, JWC, and DH

Author Bio: 

Johannes Pfeifenberger and Judy Chang are principals of The Brattle Group. Delphine Hou is a former Brattle associate. This article is based on work undertaken for the Southwest Power Pool’s Regional State Committee and the associated report, Seams Cost Allocation: A Flexible Framework to Support Interregional Transmission Planning, April 2012, available at www.spp.org and www.brattle.com. The authors acknowledge sole responsibility for the content of this article.

Category (Actual): 
Transmission
FERC
ETRM & Markets

Interregional planning under FERC Order 1000

A Pricey Peninsula

Byline: 

Bruce W. Radford

Magazine Volume: 
Fortnightly Magazine - October 2012

High prices have turned Michigan against regional planning -- a possible foretaste of what to expect under FERC Order 1000.

Image: 
Figure 1 - Proposed Multi Value Project Portfolio Overview
Figure 2 - MISO Prices May 29, 2012 – 1:05 P.M.
Figure 3 - May 29, 2012 – 2:05 P.M.
Figure 4 - May 29, 2012 – 3:35 P.M.
Category: 
Commission Watch
Author Bio: 

 

Bruce W. Radford is publisher of Public Utilities Fortnightly.

Category (Actual): 
FERC
ETRM & Markets
Transmission

Michigan chafes over regional grid planning, providing a policy lesson for the feds.

RTO Tango

Byline: 

By Bruce W. Radford

Magazine Volume: 
Fortnightly Magazine - September 2012
Utilities in the Midwest ISO want greater access to sell into PJM’s lucrative market. But that might require a virtual merger of the two RTOs — a move rejected seven years ago as too costly, and perhaps still impractical today.
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Category: 
Commission Watch
Author Bio: 

Bruce W. Radford is publisher of Public Utilities Fortnightly.

Category (Actual): 
FERC
ETRM & Markets
Transmission

PJM and MISO ran from the altar once before. Now there’s talk of a shotgun wedding.

Double Trouble in PJM's Capacity Market

Byline: 

Ade Dosunmu

Magazine Volume: 
Fortnightly Magazine - August 2012

New Jersey’s bid to force prices downward in PJM’s capacity market not only raises the alarm about market manipulation. It also reveals a dilemma that’s preventing new generation from being built. Incumbent interests and political motivations make PJM less attractive to investment than it should be.

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Category: 
Energy Risk & Markets
Author Bio: 

Ade Dosunmu is managing director at Capacity Markets Partners. Previously he held senior management positions at Utility Risk Management Corp., Comverge, and Booz & Co., and he co-founded energy efficiency service company GreenPrimate Inc. Email him at adosunmu@capacitymarkets.com

Category (Actual): 
ETRM & Markets
Transmission
Strategy & Planning

Policymakers and industry seek a formula to assure competitiveness and resource adequacy.

Learning to Love Congestion

Byline: 

Hyde M. Merrill and Richard D. Tabors

Magazine Volume: 
Fortnightly Magazine - July 2012

In competitive power markets based on locational marginal pricing (LMP), the facts sometimes conflict with popular belief. Most notably: 1. When there’s congestion, the books don’t balance, and ratepayers always pay more than the generators receive. The difference is sometimes called “congestion cost.” 2. Congestion in a competitive market doesn’t necessarily increase ratepayers’ costs; and 3. Reductions in LMP are incomplete and sometimes misleading measures of economic benefits of transmission upgrades. These three facts and their implications should be considered in transmission planning, market design, tariffs, and system operations.

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Category: 
Energy Risk & Markets
Author Bio: 

Hyde M. Merrill (hm@merrillenergy.com) is the proprietor of Merrill Energy, LLC. Richard D. Tabors (rtabors@crai.com) is a vice president at CRA International, and previously was a faculty member at MIT. The views in this article are solely the authors.’ They acknowledge the insightful help of J. Dan Watkiss.

Category (Actual): 
ETRM & Markets
Transmission

Competitive market problems and their implications for customers’ net costs.

It's the Money, Not the Fish

Byline: 

Bruce W. Radford

Magazine Volume: 
Fortnightly Magazine - July 2012

Asset owners in the Northwest cry foul as the Bonneville Power Administration struggles to reconcile FERC orders with its operational realities. The battle between wind and water has blown up into a regional conflict over transmission tariffs.

Category: 
Commission Watch
Author Bio: 

Bruce W. Radford is publisher of Public Utilities Fortnightly.

Category (Actual): 
The Feds
Wind
Transmission

Bonneville Power, wind curtailments and the bigger picture.