Assessing the dollar price tag for meeting the NERC 10-minute reserve rule

The operating guideline formulated by the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) requires electric utilities to maintain enough online generation reserves to cover their worst generation and load contingency. To comply with this rule, most utilities carry enough 10-min reserves to cover the loss of their largest generating resource and/or 5-10% uncertainty in their load forecast. The authors present the results of a parametric study, performed for the Middle South Control Area, to quantify the cost of carrying short-term generation reserves