Improving Power Grid Operations under Electricity Deregulations

In competitive electricity market, effective ISO operation is critical for grid reliability and market efficiency. This paper discusses several key operation issues, including the requirement of resource specific information, financial incentive for compliance of deployment instructions, impact of block schedules, deliverability of ancillary services, observability of transmission system, dispatch interval and the importance of day-ahead market. The discussion is based on over-five-year operations experience at Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). In addition, we provide improvement suggestions which, we believe, are essential to virtually all control areas operating under the deregulated environments.