Control center modernization is enhancing reliability
One of the California ISO’s key strategic goals is our ongoing Control Center modernization program. This multi-year effort ensures our Grid Operations team has the advanced tools needed to reliably manage the evolving resource mix, particularly during extreme weather and the ever-present threat of wildfires across the West.
While this summer’s weather has been more moderate compared to the past few years, a stretch of high temperatures, lightning strikes, and wildfire activity recently underscored just how valuable our modernization work has been.
The Control Center is a dynamic and automated environment where operators constantly monitor and evaluate changing conditions across a vast geographic area that spans much of the Western U.S. Strong situational awareness and the ability to quickly assess data in real time – especially when wildfires temporarily disable transmission lines – are essential to good decision-making and keeping the system balanced and reliable.
Two years ago, during similarly challenging conditions, some of our older operational tools struggled to deliver accurate results or address our real-time awareness needs quickly enough.
Fast forward to this most recent period of heightened demand and I was proud to see our improved tools and teams perform exceptionally well. Our team maintained reliability, responded effectively to every challenge, and communicated clearly with external partners who depend on us for accurate information and sound decisions.
After reviewing these events with the team, I want to share highlights from the recent heat waves and how our enhanced operating environment made a tangible difference.
Real-Time Contingency Analysis (RTCA) – Running every five minutes, RTCA provides up-to-date power flow analysis, ensuring we are always prepared for the next worst-case scenario. If a fire knocks out equipment, RTCA immediately registers the outage and flags any new areas of concern. We can also model unforeseen contingencies as needed. These improvements:
- Provide much greater system stability with far fewer failed analysis.
- Enable more efficient and timely decision-making.
- Significantly benefit the team during rapidly changing fire and weather conditions.
Real-Time Market – In recent years, new grid technologies and operational changes have made the electricity market even more critical. The Real-Time Market ensures generation and intertie dispatch can prevent or mitigate overloads arising from fire-related outages. Our improvements:
- Significantly reduce market failures.
- Decrease the need for manual operator actions, improving response time.
- Deliver better solutions through enhanced modeling that considers more scenarios.
Also, participation in the Western Energy Imbalance Market (WEIM) expands available five-minute capacity, giving operators greater flexibility.
Watch Duty – This third-party application is heavily used during fire season, offering frequent updates on fire locations, status, and suppression efforts. We now use it to overlay transmission line locations on fire maps and display webcam images of affected areas. Often, operators can view power lines in real time and assess their proximity to fires, providing:
- Better-informed mitigation decisions.
- Improved communication with internal teams and external partners, state officials, utilities, and other key contacts.
This application is used by grid operators for a comprehensive real-time awareness of fire location, status and suppression efforts that support mitigation decisions and improved communications.
Crew Response – Operations has strengthened its staffing by bringing in a diverse mix of experienced operators and technical experts from various backgrounds.
- Provides a broader knowledge base and skill set to tackle emerging grid challenges.
- Ensures operational training remains current with new technologies, preparing crews for any challenge.
Internal Communication – The California ISO has improved its internal communication and support. Reporting through the Joint Information Center during critical events enables consistent messaging to stakeholders and decision-makers.
- Enhances operational and technical support.
- Streamlines processes with the new Grid User Support team, which coordinates with IT and other groups for maintenance and tool management.
- Reduces burdens on on-shift operators, allowing them to focus on real-time grid reliability.
Real-Time Contingency Analysis Enhancements – For our engineering staff, these advanced capabilities are invaluable during fires and extreme weather, allowing them to quickly analyze the Western Interconnection and identify potential high-impact contingencies.
- Greatly improves efficiency in real-time decision-making, which is essential as conditions change rapidly.
Frequency Monitoring – As reliability coordinator for other balancing authorities in our RC West role, ISO operators use improved Dynamic Stability Analysis and updated procedures to closely monitor interconnection frequency. This provides:
- A vital tool to prevent low-frequency or transient stability concerns throughout the grid.
Enhanced oscillation monitoring helps reliability coordinators quickly detect and address possible problems with power system oscillations.
Enhanced Frequency Oscillation Monitoring – Continuous system monitoring is essential to ensure oscillations are quickly detected and addressed. Enhancements to our frequency oscillation tools allow RC West to rapidly pinpoint oscillation sources using Real-Time Dynamic Monitoring System and an in-house analytics tool.
- Enables real-time resolution of issues such as resource testing that may cause oscillations by coordinating immediately with scheduling coordinators.
These technical advancements help address the day-to-day challenges grid operators face in California and elsewhere. Our control center modernization program and improved training have greatly strengthened our ability to meet the evolving demands of grid operations, ensuring we are ready for both routine tasks and extraordinary events.
