Monitoring for post-contingency System Operating Limit exceedance in the Western Interconnection

The Western Electricity Coordination Council´s Reliability Coordinator (WECC RC) function monitors a very large area of the Western United States in addition to Alberta and British Columbia, Canada; and North Baja California, Mexico. Monitoring a large area such as the Western Interconnection requires that processes and tools provide methods to facilitate the interpretation of real-time data and application results. This paper discusses the use of real-time contingency analysis at the WECC RC and some of the tools the RCs use to intelligently sort out the important, actionable information. Additionally this paper discusses the WECC RC´s monitoring methodology and procedures and how they shape the RC´s actions when dealing with post-contingency System Operating Limit (SOL) exceedances. Finally, Interconnection Reliability Operating Limits (IROL) are discussed in the context of real-time awareness of IROLs and detection of potential IROL conditions.