Many of you may have noticed a growing cacophony of worries, pronouncements, notices, studies, postings, workshops and even cave paintings (just kidding) related to “frequency response” of late. Certainly this author has added to the racket. So what is the bemused observer to make of all of this?
Well, here’s nub of the biscuit. Everybody agrees on a few things: (1) resource mixes (read mostly as “different fuels used to generate power”) are changing, (2) system reliability, including the ability to keep frequency close normal following disturbances, must be maintained, and (3) nothing… there’s no third thing that we all agree on. Sort of.
Ok, that might be too harsh. Everyone agrees that as more wind and solar generation is added, it displaces other generation, like fossil fueled ones in particular. Some of those generators historically helped keep the system frequency healthy, some of the time. So, in a nutshell, the worry is “if those go away, will we have enough helpers, between the oldies left and the new ones added (including wind and solar), to keep the grid healthy?” Seems simple, right? Not so fast, grasshopper. For example, contrary to what the casual observer might expect, not only do many, even most, of those existing thermal generators not provide frequency support, in many cases the folks responsible for running and planning the grid, don’t know which ones are helping today. Further, as the new stuff, i.e. wind and solar, is added, there is no uniform agreement about whether they can or should help. Messy.
But, there’s a pile of good news mixed in the clangor. A small army of skilled and dedicated people, with an astonishing range of skills, experience and perspectives are wrestling with the nitty-gritty details that are essential to progress. For example, earlier this year, FERC issued a notice-of-inquiry (NOI), to get industry inputs on whether and what should be required in the way of capability to provide frequency response from all new generation, and whether such requirements should be applied to existing ones as well. Lots of people and entities weighed in, for a healthy debate.
This author is just leaving 2 days of meetings of the North American Generator Forum, hosted by NERC. It that meeting, technologies, practice and positive steps needed to understand and improve frequency response in the major North American interconnections were discussed. NERC and active members of the industry are leading the way forward towards understanding what the existing fleet is doing, and can do – emphatically not the same thing in many cases. This is essential to determining if we’ve really got a problem, how bad it might be, how soon it might arrive, how will we know and what we – the entire power industry – can do about it. This clarity and improvement is good for everybody. Renewables will not be unfairly blamed for problems not of their making (and fairly blamed for those that are), fossil and other synchronous generators who are doing their part today will see an easier time of it, and those free-riders that aren’t carrying their weight will be called to the floor. Reliability and economy will be improved. That’s good….so, there is a third thing we can all agree on.
Nick Miller
Senior Technical Director
GE
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