IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 33, NO.

4, AUGUST 2018 1853

Improvement of Transmission Line Ampacity

Utilization by Weather-Based Dynamic Line Rating
Bishnu P. Bhattarai , Member, IEEE, Jake P. Gentle , Senior Member, IEEE,
Timothy McJunkin, Senior Member, IEEE, Porter J. Hill , Member, IEEE, Kurt S. Myers, Member, IEEE,
Alexander W. Abboud, Rodger Renwick, and David Hengst

Abstract—Most of the existing overhead transmission lines (TLs)

are assigned a static rating by considering the conservative environ-
mental conditions (e.g., high ambient temperature and low wind
speed). Such a conservative approach often results in underuti-
lization of line ampacity because the worst conditions prevail only
for a short period of time during the year. Dynamic line rating
(DLR) utilizes local meteorological conditions and grid loadings to
adaptively compute additional line ampacity headroom that may
be available due to favorable local environmental conditions. This
paper details Idaho National Laboratory-developed weather-based
DLR, which utilizes a state-of-the-art general line ampacity state
solver for real-time computation of thermal ratings of TLs. Perfor-
mance of the proposed DLR solution is demonstrated in existing
TL segments at AltaLink, Canada, and the potential benefits of the
proposed DLR for enhanced transmission ampacity utilization are
quantified. Moreover, we investigated a hypothetical case for emu-
lating the impact of an additional wind plant near the test grid. The
results for the given system and data configurations demonstrated
that real-time ratings were above the seasonal static ratings for at
Fig. 1. A conceptual diagram of DLR.
least 76.6% of the time, with a mean increase of 22% over the static
rating, thereby demonstrating huge potential for improvement on
ampacity utilization.
temperature) over the year/season [2]. Because these conditions
Index Terms—Dynamic line rating (DLR), general line ampacity are present only for short periods of time, this approach often
state solver, grid integration, power system planning.
under-utilizes existing transmission assets. In fact, conductor
cooling from local weather conditions often provides additional
I. INTRODUCTION ampacity headroom that can be utilized [3]. Dynamic line rating
(DLR) is a technology that dynamically computes ratings of the
VERHEAD transmission lines (TLs) are thermally lim-
O ited to the amount of electrical current they can carry
due to the physical properties of the conductor [1]. Convention-
TLs based on the heat energy balance between the total amount
of energy absorbed and dissipated in the conductor as shown
in Fig. 1. Real-time monitoring of electrical and environmental
ally, TL current carrying capacity is set to static or seasonally
parameters can help to maximize the line capacity utilization of
varying values based on a conservative assumption of the envi-
critical overhead TLs. More importantly, due to natural synergy
ronmental conditions (e.g., low wind speed and high ambient air
between wind generation and increased conductor capacity at
Manuscript received June 21, 2017; revised November 20, 2017; accepted times of high local wind, DLR significantly helps increase the
January 11, 2018. Date of publication January 25, 2018; date of current version wind energy hosting capacity of existing TLs [4].
May 9, 2018. This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Recently, DLR is getting significant attention from govern-
Wind Energy Technologies Office contract with Idaho National Laboratory and
in collaboration through a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement mental organizations, professional communities, and electric
with AltaLink, LLC. Paper no. TPWRD-00832-2017 (Corresponding author: utilities. In fact, DLR is identified as one of eight smart grid
Bishnu P. Bhattarai) transmission and distribution infrastructure metrics by the U.S.
B. P. Bhattarai, J. P. Gentle, T. McJunkin, P. Hill, K. S. Myers, and A.
W. Abboud are with the Department of Power and Energy Systems, Idaho Department of Energy [1]–[2]. In addition, IEEE and CIGRE
National Laboratory, Idaho Falls, ID 83415-3570 USA (e-mail: bishnuprasadb- have formed working groups to define and standardize methods
[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; porter. for computing temperatures of overhead lines with time-varying
[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]).
R. Renwick and D. Hengst are with the Department of System Planning, weather conditions [5]–[9]. In particular, IEEE has developed
AltaLink, Calgary, AB T2A 7W7, Canada (e-mail: [email protected]; IEEE-738 standards for DLR, whereas CIGRE has developed
[email protected]). several guidelines and methods for DLR computations [7]–[9].
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. In addition, research communities have been putting significant
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRD.2018.2798411 efforts not only for technological advancement of DLR, but also
0885-8977 © 2018 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.

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 1854 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 33, NO. 4, AUGUST 2018

for addressing regulatory aspects for better utilizing the ampac-

ity of existing TLs.
The authors in [10] compared DLR experiences of electric
utilities in the United States and the United Kingdom, in [11]
provided insights on the potential benefits of DLR over static
rating through a case study in Ireland, and in [12] presented tech-
nical survey and applicability of DLR in Finland. The outcomes
of these studies which were performed in different geograph-
ical regions demonstrate that DLR has significant potential to
increase ampacity utilization of the existing TLs. In addition,
the influence of environmental conditions on line rating is stud-
ied in detail in [13]–[14], and the potential application of DLR
for improved wind energy integration is presented in [15]–[19].
Furthermore, time series modeling of DLR is presented in [20]
and analysis of electrical and thermal dynamics of the TLs are
studies in [21].
Some recent literature has also studied the potential applica-
tion of DLR to different grid services. For instance, the authors
Fig. 2. Study area terrain showing WSs and a proposed wind farm location.
in [11] proposed utilization of DLR for day ahead planning,
in [22] developed a method to improve operational tripping
TABLE I
of TLs using DLR, in [23] proposed DLR as a distributional SPECIFICATION OF FOUR LINE SECTIONS UNDER STUDY
congestion management tool, and in [24] integrated DLR into
unit commitment. Besides these technological aspects, the au- Line Segment Conductor Type Summer MVA Winter MVA
thors in [25] also presented the regulatory framework and re-
quirements for effective deployment of DLR. Despite some SV EW ACSR-266 150 150
SV NS ACSR-477 230 230
progresses in theoretical foundation of DLR, key challenges WP EW/NS ACSR-477 173 214
are still on quantifying the DLR benefits through pilot studies
performed in operational utility grids considering grid opera-
tional data and local meteorological conditions. Such pilot stud-
ies will not only provide true DLR potential, but also help to II. TEST SETUP DESCRIPTION
convince electric utilities in making them to accept the DLR The test site is located in the southern part of Alberta, Canada
technology. and consists of two transmission corridors, with each having
In this study, we implement DLR on four line segments lo- east-west (EW) and north-south (NS) line segments. The test
cated in the southern part of Alberta, Canada. The studied grid is grid is owned by AltaLink, one of the biggest electric utility
owned by AltaLink, Alberta, Canada based transmission opera- companies in Alberta. Fig. 2 provides a flat terrain surface of
tor. We used actual operational (e.g., line loading) and meteoro- the test site, locations of WSs, conductor types, and potential
logical (e.g., wind speed, wind direction, ambient temperature, wind farm expansion (marked with ”proposed location”). In ad-
and solar irradiance) data to quantify the potential benefits of dition, other technical specifications, including conductor type
DLR in terms of increase in line ampacity utilization. First, and summer/winter ratings, for the test line are illustrated in
strategic locations of weather stations (WSs) are identified for Table I. Note that both the SummerView (SV) and WindyPoint
the test system by considering the geographical aspects, compu- (WP) TLs have EW and NS line segments, which help excel-
tational complexity, and accuracy of mid-points coordinate be- lently to investigate the impact of wind direction on DLR. In
tween WSs. Based on weather data and mid-point coordinates, addition, there is potential for immediate wind farm expansion
the state-of-the-art general line ampacity state solver (GLASS), in the northern side of the test grid. Because power transmis-
which is a core engine of the proposed DLR, computes real-time sion over the considered TLs is mainly from wind and there
ampacity of TLs. Finally, we quantified the potential benefits of is a natural synergy between wind generation and concurrent
DLR in realizing enhanced TL assets utilization and evaluated cooling, the test site is perfect for evaluating the effectiveness
DLR performance against the static rating on an operational of the proposed DLR.
grid considering actual operational data and local meteorologi-
cal conditions. These pilot study based findings add significant
value to electric utility in terms of identifying DLR potential to A. Data Collection
enhance TL ampacity utilization. Because spatial and temporal variations of local weather con-
The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. First, ditions (e.g., wind speed, wind direction, ambient air tempera-
the details of the study area are presented in Section II. Next, ture, and solar irradiance levels) significantly affect line ratings,
Section III presents DLR methodology and its implementation. proper configuration of a WS and data collection are of utmost
A comprehensive analysis of the findings is presented in Sec- important for accurately computing additional ampacity head-
tion IV and the paper is concluded in Section V. room that is available in the existing TLs. As such, the best

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 BHATTARAI et al.: IMPROVEMENT OF TL AMPACITY UTILIZATION BY WEATHER-BASED DLR 1855

Fig. 4. Predominant wind direction and typical diurnal profile. a) Wind-rose.

b) Typical diurnal curve.

Table I contains the static ratings communicated by AltaLink.

AltaLink has applied a seasonal static rating on the WP segments
and a year-round rating on the SV segments. It is worth men-
tioning that the difference in the year-round rating of the SV
EW and NS line segments is due to use of different conductors.
Fig. 4(a) shows the statistics through a ‘wind rose’ of the pre-
dominant wind direction from the west with average intensities
above 4.5 m/s. In fact, it shows a mean greater than the assumed
wind condition and in a direction that is preferential to cool-
Fig. 3. Implementation of WS in a TL structure. ing of the NS-oriented line segments. Fig. 4(b) illustrates mean
diurnal curve of wind speed for a WS. It can be observed that
wind speed is higher during day when load is normally lower.
number and corresponding locations for WSs were identified The higher wind power generation during low loading period
considering geographical aspects, cost of WSs, and their ef- may lead to a situation where electric utilities need to main-
fectiveness in computing mid-span coordinates between WSs. tain power balance with other available resources. In instances
In fact, four WSs (e.g., WSL48, WSL14, WSL32, and WSL3) where DLR is used on generator tie lines where the generation is
were installed at different locations along the line segments. specifically coming from a wind plant, system operators would
Local meteorological data obtained from those WSs are used clearly rely on existing generator dispatch controls to maintain
to complete an accurate picture of the weather conditions and system balance. This is not and would not be added effort from
temperatures along the entire TLs of interest. what an operator already does. Specifically, as demonstrated in
We installed a full WS package that comprises custom mount- [12], [26], the great value of DLR occurs from natural synergy
ing brackets, a weather data logger, communications equipment, between wind speed and convective cooling of the conductor.
a 50 W photovoltaics solar cell array, charge controller, 55 Ahr Concurrent cooling thus avoids curtailment of wind power dur-
battery, pyranometer, a wind anemometer, a wind vane sen- ing the period when the power generation from the wind plant
sor, and an ambient air temperature sensor with solar radiation exceeds the static line limits of the connecting TLs.
shielding at each WS [3]. Each WS was installed at a trans- Similarly, Fig. 5 shows a diurnal pattern of the solar intensity
mission pole using pole mount systems and banded strapping as with an average of 600 W/m2 compared to the solar intensity
shown in Fig. 3. AltaLink periodically retrieved the weather data assumption made by AltaLink 1004.8 W/m2 . Solar intensities at
from the data logger every 3-minute and electronically transmit- all WSs depict that the assumption is very conservative. In addi-
ted the data to Idaho National Laboratory (INL). In addition to tion, Fig. 6 shows a temperature assumption made by AltaLink
the weather data, AltaLink also transmitted 3-minute resolu- for defining static rating and observed temperature. DLR can
tion line load data acquired from their supervisory control and result in a remarkable increase in ampacity utilization during
data acquisition system for the given line segments. The follow- the summer because the temperature for a static rating is as-
ing section presents a brief overview of the weather conditions sumed to be well above the measured ambient temperatures for
measured at different WSs. the entire summer period. From the afore-mentioned analysis of
the collected WS data, the assumptions made by AltaLink on
wind speed, solar intensity, and ambient temperature are con-
B. Data Analysis
servative. As such, dynamic calculations for line rating would
We performed the analysis based on 3-minute resolutions improve ampacity utilization for most of the time.
weather data for approximately 6 months (June 5, 2015 to De-
cember 9, 2015). The analysis period is chosen such that it
III. WEATHER-BASED DYNAMIC LINE RATING
captures both summer and winter weather conditions. The key
intent of this section is to compare observed weather data from This section presents details of INL-developed weather-based
WSs to data used by AltaLink for defining their static ratings. DLR. Fig. 7 depicts a high-level overview of the weather-based

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 1856 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 33, NO. 4, AUGUST 2018

Fig. 7. High-level overview of weather-based DLR method.

Fig. 5. Solar intensity diurnal average across the four WSs. a) WSL3.
b) WSL14. c) WSL32. d) WSL48

Fig. 8. Configuration and data flow of INL developed weather-based DLR.

information (e.g., WS data, terrain/topology, and locations of TL

structure and WSs), WindSim computes more accurate weather
conditions at mid-points of the line segments. Instead of using
weather data directly from WSs, CFD transfers weather data
to midpoints to provide local meteorological conditions with
Fig. 6. Ambient temperature versus static temperature rating. greater granularity.
Following the computation of midpoints, these data together
with real-time and/or historical weather data are feed to GLASS.
DLR and its key components: WindSim, GLASS, SAND and In addition, line segments and conductor types are provided
CRYSTAL. In fact, GLASS is a main computational engine of by electric utility to GLASS and actual conductor characteris-
the DLR system, WindSim is a wind simulation software based tics are obtained from conductor catalog. Based on these infor-
on a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model, SAND is a tool mation, GLASS computes line temperature and ampacity for
for organization and pre-processing of historical weather data each line segment. Please note that the same framework works
to make it compatible to the format GLASS can consume, and for processing of real-time and/or forecasted computation of a
CRYSTAL organizes forecasted or predicted weather data and line rating based on measured weather data. As WindSim and
drives GLASS computation. Because CRYSTAL and SAND are GLASS are the key computational engines and contain main
supporting tools for making external inputs-outputs compatible scientific contributions, these two components are detailed in
to GLASS and/or WindSim, this study is focused mainly on the following Sections III-A and III-B.
GLASS and WindSim.
Fig. 8 illustrates a detailed framework of the proposed DLR
system and its interactions with different components and enti- A. WindSim
ties. As shown in Fig. 8, WindSim receives configuration data WindSim is a CFD-based wind simulation software that is
such as location of WSs, transmission structures from a geo- used to accurately estimate wind conditions at mid-span coordi-
graphical information system (GIS) and historical data such as nates using data from WSs. In estimating local wind conditions,
local meteorological information from utility historian. In ad- WindSim uses geographic information about the topology and
dition, WindSim uses GIS terrain data to compute terrain and roughness of the terrain to create the simulated wind fields.
topology of the area where TLs are routed. After receiving these These data are then used in conjunction with the locations of

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 BHATTARAI et al.: IMPROVEMENT OF TL AMPACITY UTILIZATION BY WEATHER-BASED DLR 1857

Fig. 10. Wind direction results of given terrain from a) East and b) West.
Fig. 9. Terrain (a) layout and (b) roughness, in transverse Mercator projection.

The simulation is repeated for 24 different incoming wind

WSs, locations of TL structures, and meteorological data (e.g., sectors with 15-degree spacing. WindSim is run with a parallel
wind speed and direction, ambient temperature, and solar irra- solver on 24 central processing units for a total of 12 hours
diance) from the respective WSs to estimate wind speed and each. The simulation results are then extracted at the heights
direction at the midpoints of the TLs. To use raw elevation and of all midpoints and WSs. These results are then used to create
roughness terrain data, the data are transformed into a transverse lookup tables for each midpoint for the relative wind direction
Mercator projection to provide a suitable domain for use in the change and wind speed up/slow down from the WS data. If
Cartesian mesh of WindSim. The terrain elevation layout for the a self-similar boundary layer flow is assumed, then given any
study area using Global Mapper is illustrated in Fig. 9(a). It is wind speed and wind direction at a WS, a relative calculation can
worth mentioning that WindSim uses historical WS data to val- be made at each midpoint location. Fig. 10 shows the results for
idate and refine the models. The outcomes of WindSim include relative wind direction for the east and west cardinal directions
an assignment of line segments and computationally efficient of the generalized wind direction. From the DLR perspective, the
lookup tables to map the WS data to midpoints. following are key outputs from WindSim that GLASS consumes
In order to provide better modeling of the near-ground to compute real-time line ratings.
area, the roughness of the terrain based on vegetation, farm
r Lookup tables contain speed and direction shifts for mid-
land, and residential areas is also mapped out. Fig. 9(b) illus- points of each TL segment. The nearest WSs are used to
trates the roughness for the terrain of Fig. 9(a). In order to assign solar irradiance, wind speed/direction, and ambient
efficiently model wind turbulence, WindSim uses Reynolds- temperature for the associated mid-points.
averaged Navier-Stokes equations. Here the standard k − 
r Midpoints have association with one of the four line seg-
model is used for modeling turbulent kinetic energy, k, and ments. This is important as part of IEEE-738 being im-
the dissipation rate of kinetic energy, , as follows: plemented in GLASS uses the line current supplied by the
  utility for a given segment.
∂(Ui k) ∂ μt ∂k
= + Pk − 
∂xi ∂xi σk ∂xi
B. GLASS
 
∂(Ui ) ∂ μt ∂  2
= + c1 Pk − c2 Pk (1) GLASS is the core engine of a DLR system that computes
∂xi ∂xi σ ∂xi k k real-time ampacity at each of the line mid-points between sup-
where turbulent viscosity μt is given by: porting TL structures by considering local weather data (e.g., so-
lar radiance, current temperature, and radiated heat loss). In fact,
Cμ k 2
μt = (2) GLASS incorporates IEEE-738 standards and utilizes a heat en-
 ergy balance equation (4) to compute the real-time steady-state
and the turbulent production term Pk is given by: current capacity:
  
∂Ui ∂Uj ∂Ui qc + qr − qs
Pk = μt + (3) I= (4)
∂xj ∂xi ∂xj R(Tc )
where Ui is the velocity and cμ , c1 , c2 , σk , and σ , are the where qr , qc , and qs are radiated heat loss, convective heat loss,
fixed constants for the k −  model, with values that are set and heat gain from the sun through solar radiance, respectively.
as 0.09, 1.55, 2.0, 1.0, and 1.3, respectively [27]. For the grid R is the conductor resistance, which is a function of conductor
of the terrain, the x-y space of longitude-latitude is resolved temperature Tc , and I is current through the conductor. The
to a constant 30-meter grid, which is the same resolution the radiated heat loss rate per unit length in W/m is calculated as:
elevation and roughness features are described as within the  4  4 
geographic information system data. For the vertical direction, Tc + 273 Ta + 273
a refined mesh is used within 50 m of ground level with a 5 m qr = 0.0138D + (5)
100 100
resolution in order to resolve wind fields near the power lines
and weather stations more accurately. Outside the 50 m near where  is the emissivity, D is the conductor diameter, Tc is
ground level, a logarithmic spacing was used up to 3500 m with conductor temperature and Ta is the ambient air temperature.
40 total grid points. The total size of the CFD simulation is 9.5 Similarly, the conductive heat loss per unit length in W/m is
million cells. calculated using (6) or (7). Specifically, (6) is used to compute

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 1858 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 33, NO. 4, AUGUST 2018

qc for wind speed below 1.34 m/s:

 0.52
DVw ρf
qc = 1.01 + 1.35 kf Kan g le (Tc − Ta ) (6)
μf
whereas (7) computes qc for wind speed above 1.34 m/s:
 0.6
DVw ρf
qc = 0.745 kf Kan g le (Tc − Ta ) (7)
μf
where Vw is the speed of the air, μf is the viscosity, ρf is the fluid
parameters density, kf is the thermal conductivity calculated at Fig. 11. Computed ampacity versus static rating for WP. (a) East-West.
(b) North-South.
the ambient temperature, and Kan g le is the wind direction factor,
given by
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Kangle = 1.194 − cos(φ) + 0.194 cos(φ) + 0.368sin(2φ) (8)
The simulation configuration was set up such that AltaLink
where φ is the angle between the line azimuth and the incoming collects WS data and electronically transfers the WS data and
wind vector. The factor for wind direction can change the cool- load current data to INL for their integration into GLASS. Upon
ing effect significantly, because it can vary by a factor of three receipt of data from AltaLink, GLASS utilizes those processed
when comparing directly parallel wind flows to directly per- data to obtain the calculated ampacity for each line segment. We
pendicular wind flows. In addition to the aforementioned heat performed analysis considering data from ‘WS32’ which typi-
losses, the conductor also gains heat energy from solar irradi- cally measures the lowest calculated ampacity among all WSs.
ance. According to the IEEE-738 standard [5], heat gain due to As such, unless specifically mentioned, analysis in the follow-
solar radiance is computed as: ing sections is based on ‘WS32’. Performance of the proposed
method is evaluated through the following three scenarios:
qs = αQse sin(θ)A (9)
A. Analysis of Calculated DLR and Existing Static Ratings
where α is the solar absorptivity, Qse is the total solar and sky
radiated heat flux corrected by elevation, θ is the effective an- This section compares the current static ratings of all four line
gle of incidence of the suns rays, and A is the projected area segments to the corresponding calculated ampacity juxtaposed
of conductor per-unit length. It is worth mentioning that our to the load data. The key purpose of this analysis is to illustrate
DLR methodology is fully compatible to the IEEE-738 stan- the potential increase in headroom for each line segment and
dard for time-varying line current computation. In fact, GLASS the feasibility of accepting additional proposed wind energy in
has the capability to integrate advanced sensors, communication that area. First, we computed differences between the dynamic
channels, secure and reliable data management, and real-time (i.e., computed ampacity) and the static ratings for each data
processing through a flexible system architecture, thereby sup- point in the time series and subsequently sorted those data in
porting electric utility enterprise systems for better operational decreasing order of magnitude. Similarly, load distribution is
planning by providing information to the grid operators about computed by normalizing to the static rating in the same manner
the state of their thermally limited TLs. GLASS inherits compu- to investigate a measure of the headroom available in order
tationally efficient methodology and provides an iterative solu- to increase load compared to the static rating. As such, we
tion using modern software paradigms and programming styles compared and analyzed DLR ampacity and load distribution
to provide a more robust and modular software system. In par- relative to static rating for all line segments.
ticular, GLASS accurately computes DLR with a lower number Fig. 11 illustrates the comparison between calculated and
of WSs by coupling real-time grid operations data with field- current static ratings of WP line segments. WP EW (Fig. 11(a))
deployed WS measurements and computationally efficient CFD and NS (Fig. 11(b)) line segments were chosen to investigate
models. the impact of wind direction on the lines because those line
GLASS can interface with WSs and a utility control center ei- segments are perpendicular to each other. It is worth mentioning
ther through a standard text file folder where data can be pushed that the normalized static rating reference is set as zero and a
out to the input folder by the utility’s historian or through real- sorted line loading is set as the difference between the static
time interfacing between GLASS and the utility supervisory rating and the line load. This is done to show ampacity headroom
control and data acquisition system. In either case, data will be as a negative value, indicating headroom to the static rating.
processed to provide an output that contains a calculated line Similarly, Fig. 12 illustrates the comparison between calculated
ampacity. Fig. 8 illustrates a flow diagram with all necessary in- and current static ratings of SV line segments. The same analysis
puts and corresponding output from GLASS. Note that GLASS approach used in the WP line segments is used for the SV line
uses the thermal and geometric properties of specific conductors segments.
for each TL in those calculations. The GLASS engine can also It can be seen from Figs. 11 and 12 that WP line segments
be used to calculate historical ampacity versus load using the have significant line current headroom, even with the static
weather data collected during this study. rating, whereas SV line segments are closer to static limits.

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 BHATTARAI et al.: IMPROVEMENT OF TL AMPACITY UTILIZATION BY WEATHER-BASED DLR 1859

Fig. 12. Computed versus static rating for SV. (a) East-West. (b) North-South.

Fig. 14. Calculated versus static rating and line loading for SV NS. (a) NS.
(b) EW.

TABLE II
PERIODS OF LOAD EXCEEDING CALCULATED AMPACITY

Date Time Duration (min) Exceeded Current (A)

11/01/2015 04:36 3 6.9

12/04/2015 00:54 3 55.10
12/04/2015 08:24 3 13.31
12/08/2015 13:45 3 57.29
12/08/2015 14:03 9 45.42

Fig. 13. Calculated versus static rating and line loading for WP EW. (a) NS.
(b) EW.
low and/or ambient temperature is higher than the one assumed
while setting static rating. It can be observed from Fig. 13(a)
In fact, the SV EW line segment (Fig. 12(a)) is very near the (WP EW) and Fig. 13(b) (WP NS) that load dynamics and
static limit for some period of time; therefore, it is more critical static ratings are same for both line segments. However, slight
from a DLR application perspective. One notable attribute from differences can be observed on computed ratings due to the
the available headroom is that even though all line segments are NS line being oriented preferentially normal to the prevailing
not geographically far away, the available ampacity headrooms wind direction. The computed ratings are observed to be slightly
vary significantly. In fact, WP NS has the biggest improvement higher in EW line segment.
(Fig. 11(b)), whereas the SV EW (Fig. 12(a)) has the lowest Similarly, variation of computed DLR of SV line segments
improvement. Even though Figs. 11 and 12 do not show corre- with respect to load and static ratings is illustrated in Fig. 14.
lation of load to rating in a temporally coherent manner, they Unlike the WP case, the SV lines have higher potential for
merely summarize the differences in calculated ampacity and congestion with respect to both static and dynamic ratings. In
the static rating juxtaposed to the range of the line load. In fact, fact, the load is observed to be very close to the static ratings
the quantified values of available headroom are suitable for util- for several time periods, which is an indication of potential
ities to obtain degrees of improvement that can be achieved by congestion in the lines. In addition, even though the computed
implementing DLR. dynamic rating is above the static ratings for most of the time,
the computed rating is lower than the static ratings in several
instances. This is an indication of the conductor may hit Tcm ax
B. Analysis of Load Dynamics With Static/Dynamic Ratings for a higher load during the periods when static ratings are higher
This section presents how load dynamics vary with respect than the computed dynamic ratings. However, this may not be
to calculated dynamic ratings. We computed DLR for each line true if transient ratings are considered, which typically have 15
segment using using ‘WS32’ as the reference WS. Please note minutes of relaxation time.
that WP line segments have dual-season ratings to account for It is worth mentioning that during a small number of instances
differences in ambient temperature, while SV line segments over the entire study period, the calculated rating was lower
have a year-round static rating. It can be seen from Fig. 13 that than the line load for short periods of time. The total time the
the load never exceeded the static rating for the entire period load was higher than the calculated ampacity was for a total of
of performance for the WP line segments. In fact, the load is 21 minutes from seven instances. Table II details all of those
very comfortably below the static ratings. However, one notable instances and Fig. 15 illustrates a closer view of the actual
attribute of the calculated DLR is that it may fall below the phenomenon during load exceeding. The longest period was 9
static rating during certain time periods where wind speed is minutes, which was observed December 8, 2015; this appeared

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 1860 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 33, NO. 4, AUGUST 2018

Fig. 16. SV NS segment with load scaled to 230 MVA.

Fig. 15. Computed versus static rating and line loading for SV NS.

TABLE III
ASSESSMENT OF CFD WIND ACCURACY THROUGH WEATHER STATION
COMPARISONS, WITH THE CENTRAL 3-624L STATION

Target WS Number of Reference Target Target Error %

concurrent records Measured Measured Modeled

49J-893L 22906 13.42 14.22 14.41 1.32

32-624L 22412 13.57 12.92 13.57 5.01
14-624L 22678 13.52 14.58 12.68 13.09

to be a very calm period on a warmer winter day where the load

Fig. 17. Line ratings and load for a scaled peak load of 230 MVA.
increased rapidly. Soon after the load picked up, the wind at the
WS also increased, which quickly resolved the load over the
calculated ampacity rating. The main causes of load exceeding available 1-meter light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data was
the computed loading is due to weather conditions were such used to resolve the terrain features and surface roughness within
that the wind reached the wind plant before reaching the TL. In the CFD models.
this case, DLR provides better real-time situational awareness.
D. Analysis With Hypothetical Load Scaling
C. Analysis of CFD Accuracy Assessment In order to emulate addition of a wind farm, an engineered
In order to assess the accuracy of the CFD, the weather station scaling factor of 1.92 was applied to the SV NS line loading.
are compared to the closest neighbors through the CFD values Because the proposed wind farm is located 5 km north and
in comparison with the field data gathered over the study. The 1.6 km west of WSL14, the potential tapping would be on the
speed ratio from the central WS in the CFD model is calcu- SV NS segment. Therefore, we performed the following analysis
lated between the other three WSs for the predicted value, then considering weather data from the two weather stations: WSL32
this predicted value is compared to the actual measurement to and WSL14.
find the error, and this is averaged over the entire set of col- 1) Analysis With WSL32: We performed this analysis by us-
lected weather data. The results for comparing the central WS ing WSL32 to emulate a conservative weather scenario. Fig. 16
to the three outer WSs on the TLs are shown in Table III, the depicts the calculated ampacity versus scaled load for the entire
largest error is 13% between the WSs, so any error from the study period. The scaled load current was observed to be greater
WS to midpoint mapping would be expected to be less than than the calculated available ampacity on five occasions, with a
that amount. In finding the total heat loss for the ampacity cal- total duration of 102 minutes (0.04% of the total study period)
culations, roughly the square root of the wind speed is taken. over the available ampacity As shown in fig.17 the longest event
With this consideration the 13% average difference seen in wind was 36 minutes long, which may be enough to require curtailing
speed predictions between the WSs translates to a 6% average wind generation to protect the transmission lines.
difference in the heat loss. A possibility in the accuracies here 2) Analysis With WSL14: In order to investigate how the
could be in that the distances between the WS may create slight accuracy of the computed rating varied with the location of
variations in the time a gust arrives at the measurement point, WS, we performed the same analysis using weather data from
which is not considered in the CFD model, as it is a steady state WSL14. In fact, WSL14 is at the start of the SV and is at the
approximation. closest point to where the wind energy tap would be. Fig. 18
Please note that this analysis is with 30-meter terrain reso- illustrates calculated ampacity and scaled load. It can be seen
lution, and improvements could be made if 10-meter or even that there are a few instances when static rating would force

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 BHATTARAI et al.: IMPROVEMENT OF TL AMPACITY UTILIZATION BY WEATHER-BASED DLR 1861

not generic and are representative of the pilot study case only.
However, the presented results provide insights of the potential
of DLR to enhance ampacity utilization of existing lines under
similar operating and environmental conditions, and can serve
reference for electric utilities seeking to apply DLR.
In addition to better ampacity utilization, the impact of DLR
may pronounce even more in the future to address changing
environmental conditions. For instance global climate change
conditions could significantly change the environment in which
transmission lines operate, thereby impacting the amapcity of
the line conductor. Since conventional static line rating assumes
constant (or seasonally adjusted) ampacity without considering
Fig. 18. SV NS segment with load scaled to 230 MVA. contemporary weather conditions, the environmental changes
due to global climate changes cannot be accounted in tradi-
tional static rating. This condition ultimately increases the risk
of exceeding the maximum conductor temperature. However,
the implementation of DLR dynamically computes line am-
pacity considering measured local meteorological conditions,
thereby reducing the risk of exceeding the line current above
the limit and provides a situational awareness in an ever chang-
ing environment.

Fig. 19. Instances where load exceeded computed ampacity for scaled load. V. CONCLUSION

TABLE IV We quantified the value of weather-based DLR for improved

SCALED LOAD EXCEEDING CALCULATED AMPACITY utilization of available ampacity headroom for existing TLs,
improved planning upgrades, and improved situational aware-
Date Time Duration (min) Exceeded Current (A) ness for operators to make real-time decisions. Performance of
the proposed DLR is demonstrated by various cases through
11/01/2015 04:48 12 55.95
12/05/2015 05:36 6 12.18
comparison with the existing static rating. Moreover, we inves-
12/08/2015 13:39 27 21.00 tigated a hypothetical scenario to demonstrate scalability of the
proposed method and emulated the impact of potential wind
plant project near the test grid. For the studied system, the max-
imum observed headroom was corresponding to a case where
a curtailment of the increased load to maintain compliance.
real-time ratings were above the static ratings for up to 95.1%
However, with WS624L14, only three events occurred for a
of the time, with a mean increase of 72% over static rating. The
total of 45 minutes. The total time load exceeded the computed
minimum observed headroom corresponded to the case where
ampacity rating is only about 0.017%, whereas the static rating
real-time ratings were above seasonal ratings for 76.6% of the
would have been exceeded numerous times for a total of 375
time, with a mean increase of 22% over static rating. Even
hours (≈ 8%).
though the quantified values are not generic, these values give
Fig. 19 details the time instances where scaled load exceeded
very good insights to electric utilities in terms of DLR potential
calculated ampacity. In fact, we observed three events where
to enhance ampacity utilization of existing lines operating under
scaled load exceeded calculated ampacity. Table IV depicts the
similar environmental conditions.
time and duration for each event where load exceeded the am-
In the future work, the data from the CFD wind simulations
pacity. Three of the events that appeared with WSL32 did not
will be used to couple in forecasted weather data for predictions
appear in the 624L14 analysis due to better computation of
of dynamic line rating values, as well as using the extrapo-
ampacity from the more representative WS. Even though three
lated CFD wind speeds with transient heat transfer modeling
events occurred where scaled load exceeded the calculated am-
to calculate conductor temperature predictions. Moreover, we
pacity, they are of a shorter duration (compared to the WSL32)
will incorporate human factors and forecasting uncertainties
and there is plenty of headroom (in the order of hundreds of
into DLR, and integrate it to utility decision making, including
amps) before and after those events. This implies that conductor
day-ahead resource planning and unit-commitment.
can easily cool after going over load in all cases.
Analysis of the results described in the aforementioned sec-
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 1862 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 33, NO. 4, AUGUST 2018

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 BHATTARAI et al.: IMPROVEMENT OF TL AMPACITY UTILIZATION BY WEATHER-BASED DLR 1863

Porter J. Hill (M’16) received the B.Sc. degree in Rodger Renwick received the B.Sc. degree in civil
electrical engineering from Utah State University, engineering including one year of electrical engineer-
Logan, UT, USA. He is an Electrical Engineer with ing from the University of Calgary, Calgary, AB,
Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho Falls, ID, USA, Canada, in 1984. He is currently a Principal Trans-
with more than ten years of experience as an Engi- mission Lines Engineer with AltaLink, Calgary, AB,
neer. He was a major contributor to a system-level Canada, since 2002. His is responsible for philoso-
electrical study INL conducted for several military phies associated with standards, design, and main-
bases for the Army, Navy, and Air Force. During tenance of AltaLinks transmission line asset, devel-
the system-level studies he provided guidance to the oping strategies for transmission line maintenance,
bases regarding future plans for the base’s electrical storm remediation, and transmission line emergency
system, performed power flow modeling analysis to spares. Before that, he was a Transmission Lines
identify impacts to the distribution system as solar and wind were integrated, Engineer with TransAlta from 1989 to 2002.
and also performed design to incorporate grid storage into systems in both grid-
tie and microgrid modes. The grid storage devices that he has researched are
battery, flywheel, and fuel cells.

Kurt S. Myers (M’15) received the B.Sc. degree in

physics from the University of Washington, Seattle,
WA, USA, in 1992 and the M.Sc. degree in electrical
engineering from Washington State University, Pull-
man, WA, USA, in 1997. He is currently a Project
Manager and Staff Electrical Engineer with Idaho
National Laboratory, Idaho Falls, ID, USA. He has
more than 16 years of experience with the labora-
tory, working with multiple government and industry
customers, and with university collaborators. He has
coauthored many technical papers, reports, articles,
and presentations on wind and solar power, electrical engineering, and power
systems. Mr. Myers is also a licensed Professional Engineer in the State of
Idaho.

Alexander W. Abboud received the B.S. degree in David Hengst received the B.Sc. degree in electri-
chemical engineering from the University of Califor- cal and electronics engineering from the University
nia, Davis, Davis, CA, USA, in 2009, and the Ph.D. of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada, in 1989. He is
degree in chemical engineering from the University currently working as a Project Engineering Man-
of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA, in 2015. He is ager with Altalink, Calgary, AB, Canada. Before
currently a Research Scientist with Idaho National this, he was a Senior Project Engineer with AltaLink
Laboratory, Idaho Falls, ID, USA. He specializes in (2013–2015), a Senior Engineering Advisor with Er-
computational fluid dynamics modeling with experi- icsson (2008–2012), a Senior Network/Project Engi-
ence in a variety of systems including waste glass vit- neer with Nortel Networks (2005–2008), and Cana-
rification, coal combustion, fluidized beds, and wind dian GSM Engineering Leader with Nortel Networks
field flows. (2001–2005).

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