Threats to the Power System

Transcription

1 Threats to the Power System Energy Risk and Critical Infrastructure Workshop National Conference of State Legislatures William P. Mahoney III Deputy Director, Research Applications Laboratory National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, USA

2 National Center for Atmospheric Research NCAR is a Federally Funded Research & Development Center (FFRDC) Administered by consortium of 105 Ph.D.-granting North American universities through the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization. UCAR International Affiliates: A group of 33 international institutions with strong connections to UCAR/NCAR Energy Related Research Wind and Solar Resource Assessment Wind and Solar Energy Prediction Load Prediction Met-ocean Conditions Prediction Hurricane Characterization & Prediction Climate Change Impacts

3 Mother Nature Is Not Always Kind! Tornado damage NWS Over speed damage Powerline icing Utility products Turbine blade icing Wildland fire 4 Mother Nature Is Not Always Kind! Wind Damage Microbursts KCTV News Kansas City June 2015 NWS June 2006, Ohio 5

4 Hurricane Sandy Utility Damage (NY) Impact 600,000 customers in 4 major service areas 28 million customer interruption hours Credit: George Tech 6 Weather Impacts to Utilities 7

5 Weather Impacts to Utilities 8 Weather threats to the power system High wind Lightning Ice and heavy snow Wildland fire Clouds (solar energy) Turbulence & wind shear Excessive heat (transmission) Thunderstorm gust fronts Hurricanes Drought Space weather Ozarks Electrical Cooperative 9

6 Wind Generator Scale Source: Terra Magnetica 1 Overarching Wind Energy Science Challenges Boundary layer meteorology (0 to 200 m above ground) is not well understood nor is this layer well measured The wind energy industry greatly under appreciates the complexity of the airflow in this layer The wind industry has historically assumed less turbulence and more wind with height above the ground Image source: Wind Measure International 1

7 Overarching Solar Energy Science Challenges Improve prediction needed of: Cloud lifecycle Aerosols Jet Contrails Surface conditions (snow/ice melt on solar devices) Cloud and precipitation processes are highly complex and operate on very small scales (10s to 100s of meters) Weather models greatly over simplify cloud physics properties and precipitation processes. Jet contrails can spread into a cirrus deck and are not predicted by any models 1 Low-Level Jets of High Wind (U.S. Midwest) Lidar (laser radar) measured wind velocity toward lidar Height (km) 10 ms -1 ribbon of high speed air Distance (km) Courtesy, Robert Banta, NOAA Low-level jet streams can damage wind generators

8 Wind Variability at Turbine Height Can be Substantial Courtesy Ned Patton, NCAR Wake Effects of Turbine Arrays Turbine wakes result in power loss, turbulence, wind shear and overall wear and tear on the turbines drive trains Courtesy Branko Kosovic, NCAR

9 Wind Shear vs. Turbine Efficiency Knowledge of the wind profile is important for wind to power conversion Shear across blades can reduce efficiency by up to 20%! (Lundquist and Wharton, 2009) Cold Front Wind Ramp Low-level Jet Wind Ramp (T. Aguilar, 2010) Wind Energy Ramps Colliding Gust Fronts Colliding thunderstorm gust fronts in Texas Mahoney 1988

10 Wind Energy Ramp Events 8/03/09 771mw up-ramp from 20:10-22:10 followed by a 738mw down-ramp from 22:40-00: MW in < 2 hrs. 700 cold front MW :50 small thunderstorms 17:10 17:30 17:50 18:10 18:30 18:50 19:10 19:30 19:50 20:10 20:30 20:50 21 :10 21:30 TIME 21:50 22:10 22:30 22:50 23:10 23:30 23:50 0:100:30 0:50 1:101:30 1:50 Ponnequin Ridgecrest Spring Canyon Cedar Creek Logan/Peetz Table Colorado Green/Twin Buttes Complex Flows Offshore Wind For offshore applications it is important to capture wind and wave interactions Moving waves Peter Sullivan, NCAR Waves generate their own wind field that persists to hub height

11 Hurricane Flow Characterization Complexities WRF Hurricane Simulation Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) 190 ft (62 m) resolution Resolving turbulence scales How do wind turbines respond to hurricanes, typhoons and USA Nor easters? (Rich Rotunno, NCAR Future Climate Impacts Climate Scenarios of Wind and Solar Resources Developed for National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Data for Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS) Datasets CFDDA, NARCCAP, CCSM

12 Offshore Oil Operations Offshore oil operations are heavily sensitive to the met/ocean environment. Source: AP Source: Rick Adams Lack of Water - Drought Power plants that have shut down or reduced output due to water problems Source: Davis & Clemmer, 2014

13 Technology Highlights Wind Energy Prediction System Developed for Xcel Energy Services, Inc. Includes ~6GW Saved Xcel ratepayers $49M since 2010 Xcel Energy annual revenue $11B 24 Technology Highlights Solar Energy Prediction System Department of Energy sponsored project 25

14 Hydro-meteorology NCAR Hydro Model New National Water Model Generates spatially continuous estimates of hydrologic states (snowpack, soil moisture, evapotranspiration, inundation) Uses modeling architecture that permits rapid infusion of new data and science Current NWS River Forecast Points (~3,600) NWM River Forecast Points (~2.7 million) Modeling and Data Assimilation Review 6-8 June 2016 WRF-Hydro National Water Model Modeling and Data Assimilation Review 6-8 June 2016

15 Thank You Source: AfricaBriefing.org