Electricity Reliability
LBNL’s electricity reliability research focuses on both technical and institutional issues, including technology development, metrics and trends, and economic value to electricity consumers.
Electricity Reliability Technology Research and Development
Re-engineering the power system to take advantage of the current revolution in information technologies is key to addressing growing operating challenges faced by the electricity grid. LBNL manages the program office for the Consortium for Electric Reliability Technology Solution (CERTS), which was formed in 1999 to research, develop, and disseminate new methods, tools, and technologies to protect and enhance the reliability of the U.S. electric power system and the efficiency of competitive electricity markets. CERTS’ work helps the power grid benefit from new sensing, communication, computation, and control technologies.
Electricity and Bulk Power Reliability Metrics and Trends
A common management precept holds that you cannot manage something effectively unless you can measure it. Grid reliability performance metrics are essential for managing reliability because they provide a quantitative, objective basis for evaluating the efficacy of actions taken to maintain or improve grid reliability. LBNL, with help from industry and government agencies, conducts research on reliability metrics and methods to ensure collection of consistent, comprehensive information about reliability performance. LBNL’s work also assesses trends in reliability as a basis for assessing the impacts of reliability policies, practices, and technologies over time.
The Economic Value of Reliability for Electricity Consumers
The value that consumers place on reliable electricity service can be used to assess the economic efficiency of investments in electricity generation, transmission, and distribution systems. LBNL’s research evaluates which customer segments would benefit most from potential system improvements and quantifies the risks associated with different operating, planning, and investment strategies. LBNL has developed customer damage functions that estimate power interruption costs based on the number of customers affected; their rate class; and the time of day, season of the year, and length of the interruption. This information has been used to develop a national estimate of the annual consumer cost of power interruptions.
Blackout Investigations
Investigations of major power blackouts require months of technical work and coordination. LBNL provided technical support to the U.S. DOE-appointed team investigating power outages that took place during the summer of 1999 and participated in the U.S.-Canada investigation of the 2003 Northeast blackout.
