In an effort to increase public awareness and understanding of available energy during stressed grid conditions, the California ISO plans to launch significant improvements to its data display on June 6 to show available capacity, reserves, and the impact of demand response on electricity use. The additions are designed to give a more accurate view of real-time grid conditions. The improvements are being made in the Today’s Outlook section of the www.caiso.com website and to the ISO Today mobile app.
The “Available Capacity” graph will be re-titled “Current capacity” and will show the energy available to the grid operator in the subsequent one to four hours.
Following the changes, the Current Capacity graphic will display all currently available capacity on the system, including the amount in use and energy not in use but available if needed. The capacity value will vary due to resource startup times, constraints, outages, transmission congestion and emergencies and will not include solar, wind and demand response resources. The reserve value will be comprised of reserves that are both currently online and those on stand-by.
The ISO is also adding a graphic representation of large-scale demand response events in which grid operators economically and manually dispatch demand response to lower electricity use. The demand line on the “Demand and Net Demand trend” graphs, will display red when demand response load reduction reaches a significant amount.
For a more detailed explanation of terms and methodology, users may click on the information icon – an “I” in a circle – in the upper right hand corner of the graphs on both Today’s Outlook and the ISO Today mobile app.
Today’s Outlook on the ISO’s website and the ISO Today mobile app may experience temporary performance issues between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. Pacific Time, Monday, June 6.
For more information on the updated displays, view a stakeholder training video on the California ISO's Learning Center webpage.