Invited to be presented on Panel “The Computation of Dynamic Transfer Limits with Contingencies

and Remedial Action Schemes in Real Time and Look Ahead Modes”

ERCOT Experience in Using Online Stability Analysis in

Real-Time Operations
Jian Chen, Tim Mortensen, Bill Blevins, Chad Thompson, Pengwei Du

power system operations, and unstable conditions in a power

Abstract— This paper discusses experiences in the use of system could cause severe consequences and even lead to
online stability analysis tools in Electric Reliability Council of widespread blackouts.[3] Also, the operating conditions in a
Texas (ERCOT) interconnection, USA. In order to prevent competitive market environment create more uncertainties in
certain unstable system conditions, the online stability analysis
monitoring stability conditions with regard to different system
tool – DSATools – has been implemented in the ERCOT control
room. Using real-time information from the Energy Management topologies and contingencies. Recognizing the requirement to
System (EMS), DSATools calculates the system stability limits secure system stability in real-time operations, ERCOT has
based on both voltage and angle stability. The system architecture implemented the online stability analysis tool – DSATools - to
and hardware setup are presented. The defining of study monitor system security, calculate system operating limits, and
scenarios is also presented, using the voltage and transient study evaluate other issues related to system stability.[4] The
cases. As the online tool runs and updates the stability limits
every 15 minutes, system operators use the Megawatt (MW)
DSATools program has been integrated with the ERCOT
difference between actual power flow and stability limit to Energy Management System (EMS), which allows system
evaluate the system stability conditions. Using various real-time operators to mitigate specific stability constraints through the
tools, system operators can re-dispatch generation to manage the ERCOT Market Management System (MMS). In real-time
system security margins, and therefore ensure system reliability. this specifically refers to the Security Constrained Economic
Dispatch (SCED) application.
Index Terms—Online Stability Analysis, Congestion
This paper is organized as follows. Section II describes the
Management, Voltage Security Assessment Tools (VSAT),
Transient Security Assessment Tools (TSAT), Independent identified stability concerns in the ERCOT grid. Section III
System Operator (ISO), Power System Operations, ERCOT. presents the architecture and configuration of the online
stability tools. Section IV presents the defined scenarios for
I. INTRODUCTION voltage stability and angle stability monitoring. Section V

T he Electric Reliability Council of Texas Inc. (ERCOT) discusses the approach of using Transmission Constraint
serves as the Independent System Operator (ISO) for most Manager (TCM) to mitigate the stability constraints through
of the state of Texas, and manages the flow of electric power SCED. Section VI summarizes ERCOT’s experiences to date
to 24 million Texas customers – representing 85 percent of the regarding the use of online stability analysis tools.
state’s electric load and 75 percent of the Texas land area.
ERCOT schedules power on an electric grid that connects II. EXISTING STABILITY CONCERNS IN ERCOT
43,000 miles of transmission lines and more than 550 In this section, the existing stability concerns in ERCOT
generation units. There is a total of 12,316 MW of wind grid are discussed. The concerns include both voltage stability
generating capacity installed and operating in the ERCOT and angle stability under certain operating conditions.
market, which makes Texas the largest renewable energy A. Voltage Stability Concerns
producer in US. [1][2]
In a power system, voltage stability problems commonly
The ERCOT bulk transmission system is built around
relate to high power flow transferred from remote generation
345kV and 138kV lines, which extend from far northwest area
sites to large load centers. Increasing power transfers can
of Texas to the border of Mexico. Most power is consumed in
cause bus voltage depression in the receiving load centers. In
industrial and urban load centers in East and South Texas,
the severe conditions, it could lead to a voltage collapse in the
while most renewable energy is generated in West Texas due
load center due to the stressed transmission system and lack of
to the abundant wind resource in the area. This separation
reactive support.
between resources and load centers create some unique
Based on ERCOT annual planning studies and historical
challenges in how to best integrate renewable resources to
operations experiences, several areas have been identified with
meet increasing demand while also effectively ensuring the
voltage stability concerns:
reliability of the ERCOT grid.
ƒ Dallas-Fort Worth Area
System stability has always been an important issue in
ƒ Houston Area
ƒ Rio Grande Valley Area
* The authors are with Electric Reliability Council of Texas, 2705 West Lake
Drive, Taylor, TX 76574 USA (e-mails: Jian.Chen, Tim.Mortensen,
ƒ Corpus Christi Area
Bill.Blevins, Chad.Thompson, [email protected]). As their geographical locations show in Fig.1, these areas

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are urban load centers with high residential or industrial load of units in the west Texas region.
demand. During peak load times, such as a hot summer With the fast growth of renewable generation in West
afternoon or cold winter morning, a large amount of power Texas, the Texas Competitive Renewal Energy Zones (CREZ)
needs to be transferred from the generation sites outside into project was approved by Texas legislature in 2005 to transfer
these load centers. As the system operator of power grid, it is the renewable energy from the remote area in the west to
ERCOT’s responsibility to closely monitor the voltage heavily populated areas of Texas [5]. With the progress of this
stability conditions in and around these load centers. project, multiple 345kV lines have been built and put in
service in 2013, which greatly improved the stability
conditions in West Texas. On the other hand, because of the
on-going project, outages were taken on key transmission
substations in West Texas, which made monitoring stability in
West Texas more challenging and critical.
Because of the above concerns, ERCOT recognized the
importance of having real-time capabilities to monitor system
stability while optimizing the utilization of the transmission
system. ERCOT has set up study scenarios for the identified
transfers, where power flows through a pre-defined interface
are monitored and controlled based on stability limits. The
Fig. 1 Major Load Centers in ERCOT online stability analysis tool, DSATools, has been
B. Angle Stability Concerns implemented for this purpose.
The other stability issue that challenges ERCOT system
operators and support engineers are related to angle stability. III. ONLINE DSATOOLS
TM
Inter-area oscillations have been observed within the ERCOT The DSATools is designed by Powertech Labs as a set of
system for years in various dynamic simulation studies. leading-edge stability analysis software, which has been
ERCOT system planning engineers perform dynamic studies widely used in power system online and off-line studies [6][7].
annually to evaluate these potentially threatening inter-area For online studies, DSATools utilizes the network models and
oscillations. Previous study results indicated that there are two real-time operating conditions from the EMS, to evaluate the
major system oscillation modes in the ERCOT grid: a West- system stability, to calculate system operating limits, and to
Northeast mode (0.75Hz) and a West-Houston/Corpus Christi recommend remedial control actions if applicable. Its study
mode (0.55Hz), as shown in Fig.2. results can be presented to system operators with its own
visualization tools or through custom built EMS displays.
Installed in the ERCOT control center, DSATools consists
of three major modules:
ƒ DSAManager
ƒ VSAT
ƒ TSAT
where DSAManager provides an interface between the EMS
system and the stability analysis applications (VSAT and
TSAT); Voltage Security Assessment Tool (VSAT) is a power
flow based tool for steady-state analysis of voltage stability;
and the Transient Security Assessment Tool (TSAT) is a time-
domain simulation tool that is capable of assessing the system
dynamic stability.
Fig.2 Summary of System Oscillation Modes in ERCOT System
A. Software and Hardware Architecture
As more synchrophasor measurement units (PMU) have
been installed on the ERCOT grid in recent years, the phasor Fig.3 shows the key components and their data flows in the
data from those PMUs also provided a practical way to detect ERCOT implementation of DSATools. In order to perform
and verify potential angle stability issues. By analyzing the stability analysis based on real-time operating conditions, a
voltage angles data recorded in a unit trip event, the main snapshot of the power system is taken from the EMS State
oscillation mode during the event was identified. In that Estimator (SE) and saved as a power flow raw file. A data
specific event, the frequency of oscillation was identified as server is located between the EMS and DSAManager to
0.56Hz, and the oscillation was well damped (damping ratio > exchange the power flow file and other relevant information.
10%). The observation provided evidence that the inter-area DSAManager, acting as an interface between the EMS and
oscillations exist in the ERCOT grid. It also showed that the VSAT/TSAT, matches the power flow case with the pre-
simulation results from dynamic studies are accurate, defined models and data internally, and prepares the study
especially regarding the oscillation frequency and the behavior cases for submission to VSAT and TSAT. VSAT and TSAT

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 3

act as computation engines and run stability studies for the evaluate the current system operating conditions with the given
specified scenarios. Once the studies are completed, the contingencies, study parameters and security criteria. Next
assessment results will be returned to DSAManager and VSAT runs transaction studies to stress the power system by
archived in the data server. These final results are also increasing the flow transferred from the source to the sink.
transferred back to the EMS and displayed in the EMS for VSAT identifies the voltage stability limit, which is the
system operators. maximum real-power (MW) transferred through interface
before voltage collapse happens. VSAT also has the capability
to perform contingency screening.
TSAT performs transient security assessment, using the
nonlinear time-domain simulation techniques. TSAT simulates
the system dynamic behaviors for pre- and post-contingency
system conditions, and then performs multiple analyses on the
simulation results. The analyses are able to provide security
indices regarding angle stability, oscillation damping rate,
system frequency and transient voltage stability. Similarly to
VSAT, TSAT also performs a transaction study for each
scenario, and determines the transfer limit on the interface
Fig.3 Components in ERCOT DSATools
based on the pre-defined stability criteria.

IV. STUDY SCENARIOS

Due to the stability concerns described in Section II,
several scenarios have been defined in DSAManager and
implemented for real-time VSAT/TSAT studies. For each
scenario, its source, sink, interface and contingencies are
defined separately to provide both extensive and efficient
studies regarding the different parts of the ERCOT grid. As it
is required to provide the latest stability conditions to system
Fig.4 Hardware Architecture for Online DSATools operators, the DSATools in the ERCOT control room is set to
Fig.4 also shows the hardware architecture for the online run at least every 15 minutes.
DSATools. In order to ensure system redundancy, dual data Following are examples of how ERCOT has set up VSAT
servers, dual DSAManager servers, and dual VSAT/TSAT and TSAT study scenarios to monitor stability conditions.
computation servers are installed at each ERCOT control A. VSAT scenario: Monitoring Voltage Stability in the
center. Houston Area
B. DSAManager There are 7 scenarios in total defined for ERCOT’s online
As previously discussed, DSAManager serves an important VSAT studies, corresponding to the voltage stability concerns
role in the entire online stability analysis suite. First, it identified in Section II. As examples, two scenarios for the
provides user interfaces for operations engineers to create, edit Houston voltage stability studies are presented below.
and view stability study settings, models, and data. This
includes definitions of interfaces and transfers, contingencies,
generation capabilities, dynamic models and other information.
Second, it prepares the VSAT/TSAT study cases using the
given real-time basecase and off-line pre-defined data and
models. Third, it provides user interfaces for operations
Fig.5 North to Houston Transfer
engineers to review the results and details from the previous
Because of its high density of population and industries,
studies. In this case operations engineers can use DSAManager
The Houston metropolitan area is one of the major load
to retrieve archived VSAT/TSAT cases from the data server
centers in the ERCOT grid. It connects to the rest of ERCOT
and perform off-line studies.
with both 345 kV and 138 kV transmission lines. A
C. VSAT/TSAT combination of local generation and imported power from
VSAT and TSAT, serving as computation engines for external resources serves the load in the area. As shown in
DSATools, are designed for both online and off-line power Fig.5, four 345kV lines connecting North Texas to the
system stability assessments. Houston area create the most critical path to transfer power
VSAT performs voltage security assessment, using steady- into the Houston area. High power flow transfer or lack of
state power flow analysis techniques. For each set of pre- reactive power support, combining with major transmission
defined scenario, VSAT first runs power flow studies to line outages, could lead to a potential voltage insecurity in the

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 4

Houston area. Therefore, two VSAT study scenarios have been outages and the status of the generators in West Texas.
implemented to monitor North Texas to Houston interface: However, that brought two disadvantages: 1) the off-line
ƒ North to Houston_Gen studies were performed based on conservative assumptions,
ƒ North to Houston_Load such as summer peak load and high generation, which led to
In order to set up VSAT study scenarios, except the real- inefficient use of the West to North transfer; 2) Due to the
time power flow snapshot from EMS, other information needs complexity of operations, certain operating conditions may not
to be defined in DSAManager. Using the study scenario of be covered by the planning studies. Therefore, ERCOT
North to Houston_Gen as an example, the following operations decided to replace the inflexible planned limits with
information has been defined: the online TSAT study.
1) Source: The generation in North Texas
2) Sink: The generation in the Houston area
3) Interface: four 345kV transmission lines between
North Texas and the Houston area
4) Criteria: Voltage collapse or any 345kV bus voltage
below 0.7 p.u. inside the Houston area
5) Contingencies: All N-1 contingencies in Houston and Fig.6 West to North Transfer
its neighboring areas Unlike VSAT, TSAT uses nonlinear time domain
After receiving a power flow snapshot from the EMS, simulations to assess system stability. Therefore, it requires
VSAT adjusts the system conditions in the base case by extra data and models. For the West to North transfer study
increasing the generation in North Texas and reducing the scenario, the following information and data is defined in
generation in the Houston area. With this adjustment, the DSAManager:
power flow through the North to Houston interface is 1) Source: The generation in West Texas
increased and the transmission lines become stressed. VSAT 2) Sink: The generation in North Texas
repeats the process and runs power flow studies in the base 3) Interface: The original West to North interface
case and N-1 contingencies for each step until it determines included six 345kV transmission lines between West
the voltage stability limits on the North to Houston interface. and North Texas. The interface expanded as more
Similar definitions are used for the scenario of North to transmission lines were added by CREZ project.
Houston_Load. The only difference is that the sink is defined 4) Criteria: Loss of synchronism for any generator or
as the load in Houston area. Therefore, instead of reducing the damping ratio of inter-area oscillation less than 3%
generation, VSAT increases load in the Houston area to stress 5) Contingencies: 3-phase ground fault on major 345kV
transmission lines from North Texas to Houston area. transmission lines between West to North Texas, with
In order to cover the uncertainties and provide redundancy, fault clearing time set as 4 cycles
both of these scenarios run in the ERCOT control center to 6) Dynamic models: All traditional generators
monitor the North to Houston transfer and calculate the The dynamic models used in the West to North study
interface limits. The lower limit from the two scenarios is used include all traditional generators. Since the study is mainly
to manage the North to Houston interface. focused on small-signal stability (inter-area oscillation), the
B. TSAT scenario: Monitoring Angle Stability for West to dynamic models of loads and wind generators are excluded
North Transfer from the study. As the bus numbers in the power flow file are
not identical when the file is exported from EMS, special
Due to the relatively weak connection to the rest of ERCOT,
model names in the format of “station name + generator name”
the generators in West Texas are considered vulnerable to
are assigned to each model to match with power flow case.
inter-area oscillation. As shown in Fig.6, until the
Similar to VSAT, TSAT automatically adjusts the power
implementation of Texas CREZ project, there were six 345kV
flow in the base case and repeatedly simulates the system
transmission lines connecting West Texas to North Texas. On
dynamic conditions for basecase and N-1 contingencies, to
one side of this interface, rapidly growing wind generation
determine the transfer limit on the defined West to North
needs to be transferred out of West Texas, which further
interface.
stresses the transmission lines, making West Texas more
vulnerable to angle instability. The six 345kV lines were then
V. MITIGATE STABILITY CONSTRAINT THROUGH MARKET
defined as the West to North interface, and the West to North
TOOLS
stability limit is used to control the flow from West Texas to
North Texas. After DSATools completes the computation and passes the
Before the use of online TSAT, the limit on the West to results to the EMS, the stability limits are then considered as
North interface was determined based on ERCOT annual the pre-contingency system operating limits. The stability
engineering studies. ERCOT planning engineers performed limits, alone with other base case or contingency constraints
off-line studies and calculated a set of values for the limit by determined by the ERCOT Real-Time Contingency Analysis
considering different variables, including the transmission line (RTCA) application, are displayed in the ERCOT
Transmission Constraint Manager (TCM), so that the system

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 5

operators in the control center can monitor them and take Using the implemented online tools, system operators are
appropriate actions to control them. able to closely monitor the voltage and angle stability, as the
changes in system conditions are reflected in the studies which
A. Reliability Margin for Stability Interfaces
run every 15 minutes. The calculated stability limits also
In order to help system operators evaluate the system provide system operators a measure of reliability margin from
stability conditions, a reliability margin is assigned to each current operating condition to potential instability, and an
stability interface, which is defined as the MW difference approach to use the market tools to prevent the system from
between current real-time power flow and the calculated getting close to an unstable state.
stability limits. Following the ERCOT operations procedures,
the system operators take action if the reliability margin falls VII. REFERENCE
below a pre-defined threshold. The reliability margin, in MW,
[1] ERCOT, Electric Reliability Council of Texas [Online]. Available:
provides system operators with a numerical index to monitor http://www.ercot.com Nov. 2014
and control system stability conditions. [2] ERCOT Quick Facts [Online]. Available: http://www.ercot.com Nov.
2014
B. Transmission Constraint Manager [3] Prabha Kundur, Power System Stability and Control. Springer, 1994
[4] J. Adams, S. Sharma, S. Huang, etc “ERCOT ISO’s Experience in
The TCM application is a part of the EMS and interfaces Handling Voltage Related Issues in the Control Center”, IEEE PES
with SCED[8]. The results from both RTCA and DSATools General Meeting, Detroit, U.S., June, 2011
are displayed in a single display as shown in Fig.7. In other [5] PUCT – CREZ Transmission Program Information Center [Online].
Avaialable: http://www.texascrezprojects.com/
words, TCM provides a user interface to allow the operators to
[6] L. Wang and K. Morison, “Implementation of Online Security
monitor and enable or disable the constraint for use in the Assessment”, IEEE Power Energy Magazine, vol.4, no.5, pp.47-59,
SCED. Sept./Oct. 2006
[7] L. Wang, J. Tong and H. Li, “An Application Example For Online DSA
System”, IEEE International Conference on Power System Technology,
Auckland, 2012
[8] F. Garcia, N. Sarma, V. Kanduri, ect. “ERCOT Control Center
Experience in Using Real-Time Contingency Analysis in the new Nodal
Market”, IEEE PES General Meeting, San Diego, U.S., July, 2012
Fig.7 Constraints in TCM display
When the interface limits from DSATools update on the
TCM screen, ERCOT system operators analyze and verify the VIII. BIOGRAPHIES
reasonability of the results. Once the constraint is deemed
accurate and if it causes any threat to stability, the operators Jian Chen (S’05-M'09) received his PhD degree from Texas A&M
University, College Station, in 2008, and BS and MS degree from Xi’an
can reduce the flow on the interface by activating the Jiaotong University, China, in 1997 and 2001, respectively. He is currently
constraints. TCM also provides the flexibility of modifying the working as operation engineer in operations support group at ERCOT.
limits of all constraints. Operators can set the constraint to a
lower value or certain percentage of stability limits to restore Tim Mortensen has 25 years of electrical engineering experience in the
electric utility industry. He is a licensed Professional Electrical Engineer with
the reliability margin. a background in Real-Time Operations Engineering Support, Operator
Training Simulator Support, Energy Management System software
C. Security Constrained Economic Dispatch development and Transmission Planning.
During real-time operations, SCED dispatches (normally
every 5 minutes) online generation resources to match the total Bill Blevins has 10 years Nuclear Power and 25 years of electrical power
system demand while observing resource ramping and the systems experience. He graduated from US Navy Nuclear Power School in
1988 and served aboard the USS Florida engineering department. After
activated transmission constraints. The SCED process exiting the military he worked at South Texas Nuclear Power Electric
produces the base points for generating resources. Generating Station in system Operations. He has held positions at Duke
Using the shift factor, which is the fractional contribution of Energy as Manager of Generation Control and at NERC as Manager of
Interchange and Manager of Business Practices before coming to ERCOT.
each unit to the specific constraint, SCED adjusts the base While at ERCOT he has been Manager of Operations Support and is now
point on certain generators to relieve a given constraint. For currently Manager of Operations Planning.
example, when the constraint on the West to North interface is
activated, SCED will curtail the generators in West Texas due Chad Thompson received his Bachelors Degree in Biomedical Engineering
from Arizona State University in 2001. He has 12 years of experience in
to their positive shift factor. power systems, including Energy Management System Production Support,
Grid Operations, and Wholesale Markets. He helped implement and integrate
VI. CONCLUSION into real-time operations ERCOT’s State Estimator, Real-Time Contingency
Analysis, and Special Protection System processing applications. Chad is
This paper discussed the ERCOT operations experience of currently the Manager of the Operations Support Department at ERCOT and
using the online stability analysis tool –DSATools- to monitor is a member of the IEEE.
and control voltage and angle stability in the control room.
DSATools, including DSAManager, VSAT, and TSAT, has Pengwei Du (M’06-SM’12) is a senior engineer with the Electric Reliability
been integrated with the ERCOT EMS to calculate stability Council of Texas. Prior to this, he was a senior research engineer with Pacific
Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) from 2008 to 2013. He has been
limits on the pre-defined transfer interfaces. The system major author for over 50 journal articles, conference papers, and technical
architecture and configuration were also presented. reports.

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