Generation Planning And Market Operation Strategies In The Southwest Power Pool Energy Imbalance Service Market

Abstract

The transition of the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) from its traditional operation under tariff towards the new market environment has significant impact on the utilities in the SPP footprint, both in terms of planning and operations. The new market regulation creates the need for the utilities to reassess their planning strategy, primarily to ensure that operational decisions conform to the new market rules while remain profitable under the new operating regime. The utilities are referred to as Market Participants (MP) under the new market scheme. The new market environment will expose the MPs to a large amount of information with regard to market operation and settlement. The management of this information in a limited timeframe presents a great challenge to the MPs and necessitates the development of evolutionary tools to perform effective data analysis in a timely manner in order to ensure that the MP stays competitive in the new market environment. This dissertation presents the results of a comprehensive study of the structure and rules of the developing SPP Energy Imbalance Service (EIS) market and discusses aspects of planning functions with regard to the utility participation in the EIS market. The functions presented include an artificial neural network short-term load forecast, energy price forecast, economic dispatch, cost-based and price-based unit commitment scheduling, energy imbalance settlement analysis, as well as the validation of the RTO imbalance statement. The evolutionary EIS market planner (EISMP) software has been developed as a decision support tool for the utility's participation in the EIS market. The EISMP helps the utility to perform effective generation planning and analysis of real-time market data through an easy-to-use graphic user interface. The integration and implementation of this market planning tool have been verified in a real market environment through the assistance of the sponsor utility.