Open Access Same-Time Information System

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The Open Access Same-Time Information System (OASIS), is an Internet-based system for obtaining services related to electric power transmission in North America. It is the primary means by which high-voltage transmission lines are reserved for moving wholesale quantities of electricity. The OASIS concept was originally conceived with the Energy Policy Act of 1992, and formalized in 1996 through Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Orders 888 [1] and 889. [2]

Contents

Before OASIS

Electric utility systems in North America developed over time as regulated monopolies, jurisdictional utilities given rights to own and operate transmission and distribution networks in a given geographical area along with the responsibility to serve all loads in that same area. At first, utility companies generally served their own system load demand by building local power generation facilities within their systems. Social, economic, and ecological influences later led to new arrangements where a utility company might enter into long-term power purchase or sale agreements with neighboring utility companies, or locate new generation facilities outside of their system and enter into long-term agreements for transmission rights to deliver that energy to their own system. In the short-term world of day-to-day operations, utility companies would agree to "preschedule" (day ahead) or "real time" (same day or next hour) energy transactions with adjacent companies to supplement their own generation asset capabilities.

Vertically Integrated Utilities

As utility companies began integrating their operations in more complex ways with their neighbors, they evolved into a vertical organizational structure with three tiers: Generation, Transmission, and Scheduling.[ citation needed ] On a day-to-day or day-ahead operational level these functions might be performed by three or more people at large utilities, but might be combined into a single employee's job at a small utility. The size of the back office support for each function varies greatly depending upon the size of the utility.

Generation

The generation group manages the maintenance and operations of generation assets, with an eye on the future regarding when, where and how much generation assets will need to be developed to keep up with future demand.

Transmission

The transmission group concerns itself with maintaining the high voltage transmission system and lower voltage distribution system. As load demands increase or new generation assets come online in their systems, they upgrade existing facilities or construct new transmission corridors to maintain the reliable delivery of energy.

Scheduling

The scheduling group is responsible for ensuring that there is adequate power supply to meet the demand of the customer load on a day-to-day and hour-to-hour basis, and also for procuring resources to meet long term needs. These resources can be procured through the generation group, or through purchases and sales with other companies.

Internal Customers

Unlike a typical residential or commercial/industrial customer, large bulk users of electricity such as mills, mines and large factories generally have the opportunity to negotiate the rates they will pay their supplier for electricity. In some cases they might even have their own generation assets as well. If they chose to use their supplier's generation instead of their own, they might also be required to pay a fee for the transmission to deliver it, since that transmission might be built specifically to serve their needs. Fees for services provided by the transmission group were defined in a pro forma tariff, a document the transmission group supplied that detailed requirements and responsibilities for the purchaser and provider, and definitions and costs of the types of transmission services available.

Impact of the Energy Policy Act of 1992

The Energy Policy Act of 1992 (EPAct) laid the initial foundation for the eventual deregulation of the North American electricity market. This Act called for utility companies to allow external entities fair access to the electric transmission systems in North America. The act's intent was to allow large customers (and in theory, every customer) to choose their electricity supplier and subsequently pay for the transmission to deliver it from the generation to serve their load.

Based on the premise that new generating facilities would be allowed fair access to their regional transmission system, and precipitated by the EPAct of 1992, construction of new independently owned generation assets began in response to the development of the North American electricity market. Recognizing competition was coming, electric utility companies began modifying their scheduling functions by forming affiliated Power Marketing departments. Similarly, financial trading interests and existing energy companies (outside of electricity) saw the opportunities in the emerging electricity market and began to organize unaffiliated power marketing divisions. With open access, anyone with the proper resources and/or creditworthiness could purchase the rights to generation, move it across the transmission network (provided adequate capacity was available), and deliver it to a place of higher demand.

Following passage of the EPAct of 1992, independent generation owner/operators (also called independent power producers or IPPs) and unaffiliated power marketers lodged frequent complaints with FERC about unfair treatment under the new open access requirements. The complaints generally followed the same theme: vertically integrated electric utility companies would favor their own affiliated power marketing division over external parties trying to move power on the system. In many cases, the power marketers operated side by side with the transmission operators (or it might even be the same person) and there were no rules to prevent unfair treatment of external transmission system users.

FERC Orders 888 and 889

To protect and promote generation competition and also enforce fair treatment of external users of the transmission system, FERC issued Order 888 and Order 889 on April 24, 1996. The EPAct of 1992 was the beginning of electric deregulation in North America, but Orders 888 and 889 marked the point where the trading of electricity gained a firm foothold.

Order 888, the "Open Access" order

Order 888's primary objective was to establish and promote competition in the generation market, by ensuring fair access and market treatment of transmission customers. FERC outlined six points to accomplish this goal:

One fairly immediate result of this order was the functional separation and isolation of the power schedulers and power marketers within vertically integrated utilities from their company's area of transmission operations. Affiliated power marketers could no longer work alongside the transmission operators who were charged with treating them and external parties equally, and at the same time affiliated power marketers would no longer have any "inside information" on the availability of the transmission system nor the transactions being scheduled on it.

Order 889, the "Standards of Conduct" order

Order 889 went to great lengths to detail exactly how all participants in the electricity market should interact with transmission providers. It laid out the structure and function of what became known as OASIS "nodes," which are secure, web-based interfaces to each transmission system's market offerings and transmission availability announcements. Each OASIS node was to be the single point of information dissemination to the market as well as the customer portal for transmission service requests (TSR), even for affiliated power marketers wanting access to their own parent company's transmission.

OASIS Nodes

OASIS nodes[ clarification needed ] are entirely web-based, and public access is limited. Power marketers that become signatories to a transmission provider's OATT gain more complete access so they can view existing transmission and service availability and existing service requests made by other parties. There are also market observers who have read-only access, who may view activity but not request services.

Transmission facilities have power transfer limits that must be maintained to allow the power grid to operate reliably. Transmission operators perform system studies in various future time frames to determine how much transfer capacity is required to serve their own "native load", and how much capacity must remain as a buffer to prevent unscheduled or accidental overflows that can damage high voltage equipment. The difference between the capacity needed to serve load and to maintain safe flow margins can be made available for purchase on the OASIS node.

Unplanned outages and other system emergencies can adversely impact the total power transfer capability across transmission systems, and it sometimes becomes necessary for transmission providers to curtail power flows across the system by revoking transmission rights given to buyers on the OASIS. Some transmission buyers are willing to pay higher rates to avoid having their transactions curtailed, and as such transmission companies offer different priorities of transmission service at varying rates. The least expensive type of transmission is generally "non-firm" and purchased on an hour to hour basis. Daily non-firm is a slightly higher priority (because the buyer committed to purchasing all day), and increments go up from there to weekly, monthly, seasonally, yearly, or longer with the cost for each also rising incrementally. "Firm" transmission services are even more expensive, but are the last transactions to be curtailed.

Even before the appearance of the OASIS nodes, many groups of transmission owners had already turned over operational control of their collective bulk transmission systems to Independent System Operators of various forms. These ISO's offered OASIS access to their collective systems very early on, so that it was often possible to make a single OASIS transmission service request that could cross multiple transmission systems.[ citation needed ] Since the inception of OASIS, and under the prodding of FERC to move transmission assets under the control of ISO's, the number of OASIS nodes is decreasing as ISO's assume control of transmission systems and consolidate their related OASIS functions.

OASIS impacts

After the doors opened to allow power marketers to move their electricity purchases across multiple transmission systems, many transmission operators saw their transmission systems loaded to much higher levels. Even though transmission services are generally obtained "point-to-point", in actuality power flows divide among numerous paths according to the properties of electricity and thus the actual energy flows follow the path of least resistance—actually the flows are based on the relative (not least) inverse of the resistances in parallel circuits.

A result of the long distance electricity transactions being scheduled was the impact of "loop flows" caused by energy flowing on these alternate paths. Transmission system operators were faced with a dilemma: The problems were often being caused by external influences, and the only way available to them to reduce the stress on the transmission system was to curtail their own transmission sales. This resulted in a loss of revenue and still did not always solve the overloading problems.

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) stepped in to address this new problem that threatened the North American power grid by introducing the NERC Tagging application. NERC Tags captured entire transactions from beginning to end. This let them string together all the transmission legs obtained on various OASIS nodes, and then determine how the total schedule impacted transmission systems, and what priorities of transmission were used in the schedule. This let them determine which schedules should be curtailed to relieve loading on transmission systems.

NERC also assumed initial control of the Transmission System Information Networks (TSIN), a database of electric power system data. In 2012 the North American Energy Standards Board (NAESB), an industry council, assumed responsibility [4] for TSIN. It is now the "OATI Web Registry" and requires that users be registered. The registry is a web-based database containing a comprehensive listing of generation points, transmission facilities and delivery points as well as transmission and generation priority definitions with regard to the applications that use it (the various OASIS nodes as well as the NERC Tagging application).

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Federal Energy Regulatory Commission</span> Independent agency of the United States federal government

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates the interstate transmission and wholesale sale of electricity and natural gas and regulates the prices of interstate transport of petroleum by pipeline. FERC also reviews proposals to build interstate natural gas pipelines, natural gas storage projects, and liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals, in addition to licensing non-federal hydropower projects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">North American Electric Reliability Corporation</span> Non profit Electric Reliability Organization

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) is a nonprofit corporation based in Atlanta, Georgia, and formed on March 28, 2006, as the successor to the North American Electric Reliability Council. The original NERC was formed on June 1, 1968, by the electric utility industry to promote the reliability and adequacy of bulk power transmission in the electric utility systems of North America. NERC's mission states that it "is to assure the effective and efficient reduction of risks to the reliability and security of the grid".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Public utility</span> Entity which operates public service infrastructure

A public utility company is an organization that maintains the infrastructure for a public service. Public utilities are subject to forms of public control and regulation ranging from local community-based groups to statewide government monopolies.

An electricity market is a system that enables the exchange of electrical energy, through an electrical grid. Historically, electricity has been primarily sold by companies that operate electric generators, and purchased by consumers or electricity retailers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Electric power industry</span> Industry that provides the production and delivery of electric energy

The electric power industry covers the generation, transmission, distribution and sale of electric power to the general public and industry. The commercial distribution of electric power started in 1882 when electricity was produced for electric lighting. In the 1880s and 1890s, growing economic and safety concerns lead to the regulation of the industry. What was once an expensive novelty limited to the most densely populated areas, reliable and economical electric power has become an essential aspect for normal operation of all elements of developed economies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Electric Reliability Council of Texas</span> Regional transmission organization in Texas

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, Inc. (ERCOT) is an American organization that operates Texas's electrical grid, the Texas Interconnection, which supplies power to more than 25 million Texas customers and represents 90 percent of the state's electric load. ERCOT is the first independent system operator (ISO) in the United States. ERCOT works with the Texas Reliability Entity (TRE), one of six regional entities within the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) that coordinate to improve reliability of the bulk power grid.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Regional transmission organization (North America)</span> Electric power coordinator

A regional transmission organization (RTO) in the United States is an electric power transmission system operator (TSO) that coordinates, controls, and monitors a multi-state electric grid. The transfer of electricity between states is considered interstate commerce, and electric grids spanning multiple states are therefore regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The voluntary creation of RTOs was initiated by FERC Order No. 2000, issued on December 20, 1999. The purpose of the RTO is to promote economic efficiency, reliability, and non-discriminatory practices while reducing government oversight.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Demand response</span> Techniques used to prevent power networks from being overwhelmed

Demand response is a change in the power consumption of an electric utility customer to better match the demand for power with the supply. Until the 21st century decrease in the cost of pumped storage and batteries, electric energy could not be easily stored, so utilities have traditionally matched demand and supply by throttling the production rate of their power plants, taking generating units on or off line, or importing power from other utilities. There are limits to what can be achieved on the supply side, because some generating units can take a long time to come up to full power, some units may be very expensive to operate, and demand can at times be greater than the capacity of all the available power plants put together. Demand response, a type of energy demand management, seeks to adjust in real-time the demand for power instead of adjusting the supply.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Southwest Power Pool</span> American power-grid non-profit in the central Southern US

Southwest Power Pool (SPP) manages the electric grid and wholesale power market for the central United States. As a regional transmission organization, the nonprofit corporation is mandated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to ensure reliable supplies of power, adequate transmission infrastructure and competitive wholesale electricity prices. Southwest Power Pool and its member companies coordinate the flow of electricity across approximately 60,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines spanning 14 states. The company is headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas.

A NERC Tag, also commonly referred to as an E-Tag, represents a transaction on the North American bulk electricity market scheduled to flow within, between or across electric utility company territories. The NERC Tag is named for the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), which is the entity that was responsible for the implementation of the first energy tagging processes. NERC Tags were first introduced in 1997, in response to the need to track the increasingly complicated energy transactions which were produced as a result of the beginning of electric deregulation in North America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Midcontinent Independent System Operator</span> Transmission system operator in the United States and Canada

The Midcontinent Independent System Operator, Inc., formerly named Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator, Inc. (MISO) is an Independent System Operator (ISO) and Regional Transmission Organization (RTO) providing open-access transmission service and monitoring the high-voltage transmission system in the Midwest United States and Manitoba, Canada and a southern United States region which includes much of Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. MISO also operates one of the world's largest real-time energy markets. The 15 states covered by MISO are: Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, and Wisconsin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ISO New England</span> Oversees the operation of New Englands bulk electric power system

ISO New England Inc. (ISO-NE) is an independent, non-profit regional transmission organization (RTO), headquartered in Holyoke, Massachusetts, serving Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PJM Interconnection</span> Major electric grid coordinator in northeastern USA

PJM Interconnection LLC (PJM) is a regional transmission organization (RTO) in the United States. It is part of the Eastern Interconnection grid operating an electric transmission system serving all or parts of Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia.

There is a large array of stakeholders that provide services through electricity generation, transmission, distribution and marketing for industrial, commercial, public and residential customers in the United States. It also includes many public institutions that regulate the sector. In 1996, there were 3,195 electric utilities in the United States, of which fewer than 1,000 were engaged in power generation. This leaves a large number of mostly smaller utilities engaged only in power distribution. There were also 65 power marketers. Of all utilities, 2,020 were publicly owned, 932 were rural electric cooperatives, and 243 were investor-owned utilities. The electricity transmission network is controlled by Independent System Operators or Regional Transmission Organizations, which are not-for-profit organizations that are obliged to provide indiscriminate access to various suppliers to promote competition.

Open Automated Demand Response (OpenADR) is a research and standards development effort for energy management led by North American research labs and companies. The typical use is to send information and signals to cause electrical power-using devices to be turned off during periods of high demand.

In the electric power industry, a transmission service request is an application requesting a transmission-owning utility to allocate physical capacity in the form of transmission service rights (TSRs) for the transmission of electric power. Every TSR includes at least three components: 1) a point of delivery (POD), where the power is injected into the utility's transmission network; 2) a point of receipt (POR), where the power is withdrawn from the utility's transmission network; 3) the amount of power, or capacity, in megawatts to be reserved. In order to receive TSR, a transmission customer (TC) must complete a transmission service request and go through a system impact study to determine if the existing transmission facilities can reliably accommodate the physical transfer of the electric power. If the capacity is not available, the transmission customer may decide to pay to upgrade the transmission network.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">California Independent System Operator</span> Non-profit Independent System Operator serving California

The California Independent System Operator (CAISO) is a non-profit Independent System Operator (ISO) serving California. It oversees the operation of California's bulk electric power system, transmission lines, and electricity market generated and transmitted by its member utilities. CAISO is one of the largest ISOs in the world, delivering 300 million megawatt-hours of electricity each year and managing about 80% of California's electric flow.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">North American power transmission grid</span> Series of electrical grids that power the US and Canada

The electrical power grid that powers Northern America is not a single grid, but is instead divided into multiple wide area synchronous grids. The Eastern Interconnection and the Western Interconnection are the largest. Three other regions include the Texas Interconnection, the Quebec Interconnection, and the Alaska Interconnection. Each region delivers power at a nominal 60 Hz frequency. The regions are not usually directly connected or synchronized to each other, but there exist some HVDC interconnectors. The Eastern and Western grids are connected via seven links that allow 1.32 GW to flow between them. A study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory found that increasing these interconnections would save energy costs.

Power system operations is a term used in electricity generation to describe the process of decision-making on the timescale from one day to minutes prior to the power delivery. The term power system control describes actions taken in response to unplanned disturbances in order to provide reliable electric supply of acceptable quality. The corresponding engineering branch is called Power System Operations and Control. Electricity is hard to store, so at any moment the supply (generation) shall be balanced with demand. In an electrical grid the task of real-time balancing is performed by a regional-based control center, run by an electric utility in the traditional electricity market. In the restructured North American power transmission grid, these centers belong to balancing authorities numbered 74 in 2016, the entities responsible for operations are also called independent system operators, transmission system operators. The other form of balancing resources of multiple power plants is a power pool. The balancing authorities are overseen by reliability coordinators.

References

  1. "FERC: Landmark Orders - Order No. 888". www.ferc.gov. Archived from the original on 2016-12-19. Retrieved 2017-06-06.
  2. "FERC: Landmark Orders - Gas". www.ferc.gov. Retrieved 2017-06-06.
  3. 16 U.S.C. 824(f)
  4. "OATI webRegistry" (PDF). North American Energy Standards Board.