Key Obstacles TSOs have to Overcome

Utilities Tech Outlook | Monday, February 20, 2023

A growing number of countries are rapidly increasing their distributed solar MW. TSOs face increased challenges maintaining grid frequency within acceptable operating norms as the number of distributed energy resource installations increases.

FREMONT, CA: Transmission system operators (TSOs), which govern and operate the backbone of the energy grid, are at a once-in-an-industry juncture. Generation technologies, power flows, and operational methods are all undergoing profound change. Governments, from the federal to the regional, are taking climate change seriously and enacting increasingly stringent laws. Power grid electricity will be supplied entirely by renewable and low-carbon sources for extended periods if these targets meet. TSOs will need to make massive adjustments to how they now plan and manage their networks to accommodate this. Failure to do so could result in catastrophic effects on the power system, such as brownouts and blackouts.

Intermittency and congestion: A shifting generation resource mix and new demand drivers give rise to various supply and demand difficulties. The current electricity system on massive, centralized power plants is rapidly shifting to incorporate more decentralized, renewable forms of energy generation. Generation assets for renewable energy sources like solar, wind, and hydroelectric electricity generally place in remote areas with inadequate transmission capacity, where the underlying natural resource is most abundant and cost-effective. The requirement for additional inertial, rapid frequency, and dynamic voltage control services will increase.

Destabilizing the system: For the past century, steam produced by burning fossil fuels at power plants has turned massive turbines. The rotational energy these turbines produce delivers across the power system via generators attached to the turbines. A byproduct of their constant motion, these spinning masses supply inertia instantly, providing an immediate, dynamic response to varying conditions in the system, such as variations in frequency and voltage. This action can halt harmful developments until other assets can scale up and respond to significant grid disturbances. As a result, altering the way TSOs now evaluate solutions to preserve system resilience.

Reduced visibility of grid assets: TSOs' perspectives of generation operations on their grids are becoming obscured by the development of distributed energy resources (DERs) connected to the distribution system and located behind consumer meters. A growing number of countries are rapidly increasing their distributed solar MW. TSOs face increased challenges maintaining grid frequency within acceptable operating norms as the number of distributed energy resource installations increases. On the demand side, net demand shifts and becomes more unpredictable as more households install intermittent, behind-the-meter renewables in addition to electrifying heating systems and introducing electric vehicles.