Southwest Power grid aware of warmer weather

 

 

The heat of the next few days across Oklahoma and the rest of the Midwest caught the attention of the Southwest Power Pool electric grid.

The SPP issued a Conservative Operations Advisory for Tuesday and Wednesday and it covers the grid’s balancing authority footprint made up of 14 states. The advisory is to run through Wednesday night at 9 o’clock central time.

  • Conservative Operations Advisories do not require the public to conserve energy, but are issued to raise awareness of potential threats to reliability among entities responsible for operating transmission and generation facilities. Individuals should contact their local utility for details specific to their area.
  • Conservative Operations is being declared based on forecasts of potentially high peak loads due to unseasonably warm temperatures, low expected output from wind and other variable energy resources (*also known as low VER forecast) leading into peak hours and resource outage uncertainty.
  • Generation and transmission operators have been provided instructions on applicable procedures, including reporting any limitations, fuel shortages or concerns.
  • To mitigate risks to reliability associated with these factors, SPP may use greater unit commitment notification timeframes, including making commitments before standard day-ahead market procedures and/or committing resources in reliability status.
  • SPP will send additional information if necessary.

SPP is issuing a Conservative Operations Advisory for the entire SPP balancing authority (BA) footprint effective Tuesday, October 22, from 11:00 a.m. CT until an anticipated end of 9:00 p.m. CT. This is in addition to the previously declared Resource Advisory, which goes into effect Tuesday, October 22, at 11:00 a.m. CT through an anticipated end time of Wednesday, October 23 at 9:00 p.m. CT.

  • Conservative Operations Advisories do not require the public to conserve energy, but are issued to raise awareness of potential threats to reliability among entities responsible for operating transmission and generation facilities. Individuals should contact their local utility for details specific to their area.
  • Conservative Operations is being declared based on forecasts of potentially high peak loads due to unseasonably warm temperatures, low expected output from wind and other variable energy resources (*also known as low VER forecast) leading into peak hours and resource outage uncertainty.
  • Generation and transmission operators have been provided instructions on applicable procedures, including reporting any limitations, fuel shortages or concerns.
  • To mitigate risks to reliability associated with these factors, SPP may use greater unit commitment notification timeframes, including making commitments before standard day-ahead market procedures and/or committing resources in reliability status.
  • SPP will send additional information if necessary.

The following chart shows the relative severity of Conservative Operations Advisories: