CALCULATION OF AVAILABLE TRANSFER CAPABILITY (ATC)

In a vertically integrated market, the inter-area tie lines are designed only to
address the reliability, system security and system restoration purposes. This
integration of various systems becomes a market need in the deregulated era. Thus,
inter-area tie lines become means of bulk power transfers on a regular basis from
sources of cheap generation to loads. In other words, due to deregulation, the
paradigm of grid integration has shifted from regional self-sufficiency to optimal
utilization of resources across large geographical areas. Thus, it becomes
imperative on the part of system operator to quantify the Available Transfer
Capability (ATC) of the network and allocate the same to the market participants in
an efficient manner.

Generally, the non-market based methods rely upon the information about the ATC in
order to take a decision while allowing the next set of transactions. Thus,
calculation of ATC gains a lot of importance under such market structures. In the
early days of deregulation in USA, the ATC values for the next hour and for each
hour into the future would be placed on a website known as the open access same-
time information system (OASIS), to be operated by the ISO. Anyone wishing to send
a power transaction on the ISO's transmission system would access OASIS web pages
and use the ATC information available there to determine if the transmission system
could accommodate the transaction, and to reserve the necessary transmission
service.

Next section provides formal definitions of some of the common terms pertaining to
ATC.

Definition of Various Terms

Available Transfer Capability (ATC

It is a measure of the transfer capability remaining in the physical transmission

network for further commercial activity over and above already committed uses.
Mathematically, ATC is defined as the Total Transfer Capability (TTC) less the
Transmission Reliability Margin (TRM), less the sum of existing transmission
commitments (which includes retail customer service) and the Capacity Benefit
Margin (CBM
ATC = TTC - TRM - Existing Transmission Commitments (including CBM)

Total Transfer Capability (TTC)

It is defined as the amount of electric power that can be transferred over the
interconnected transmission network in a reliable manner while meeting all of the
specific set of defined pre and post contingency system conditions.

Transmission Reliability Margin (TRM)

It is defined as the amount of transmission transfer capability necessary to ensure

that the interconnected transmission network is secure under a reasonable range of
uncertainties in system conditions.

Capacity Benefit Margin (CBM)

It is defined as the amount of transmission transfer capability reserved by load

serving entities to ensure that the interconnected systems do meet generation
reliability requirements.

The NERC report [24] brings out the difference between �transfer capability� and
�transmission capacity�. According to this report, the �capacity' specifically
mentions the rating of the equipment, for example, the ampacity of the conductor.
On the other hand, the �capability' depends upon generation, customer demand and
the conditions in a transmission system for the given time period. Thus, the
�capacity' of a circuit may not change much from time to time. However, the
�capability' always changes with the time by virtue of changes in the system
condition.

As mentioned earlier, ability of the network system to reliably deliver power is

limited by physical and electrical characteristics of the system. These limits are:
Thermal, Voltage and Stability. During the varying conditions of power system, one
of these limits plays a major role in deciding the transfer capability. Determining
which limit is binding during a particular time is a challenging task and makes
computation of ATC an involved task.

Many methods have been suggested to calculate the ATC. The methods differ on the
basis of the power flow model being employed, the system aspects considered, the
compelling limits under consideration and some other factors. However, a broad way
of classifying methods is based on the type of limit considered, i.e., Thermal
limit, Voltage limit or the Angular stability limit. The DC power flow methods take
into consideration only the thermal limits. The AC Optimal power flow (OPF) methods
consider thermal as well as voltage limits. Then, there is another version called
Continuation power flow method (CPF). It considers a series of power system
solutions to be solved and tested for limits. The amount of transfer is gradually
increased from the base case until a binding limit is encountered. Ejebe et al.
[31] have described a method based on continuation power flow, incorporating limits
of reactive power flows, voltage limits, as well as voltage collapse and line flow
limits. Stability constrained methods require transient studies to be carried over
a case developed with anticipated scenario. Christie et al. [1] have proposed a
method based on DC power transfer distribution factors (PTDF). This utilizes DC
load flow based formulation, and computation of simultaneous ATC has also been
considered using an optimization based approach. Let us see the details of DC power
flow based ATC calculation next.

ATC Calculation using PTDF and LODF based on DC Model

One way of calculating ATC from node A to node B is to use DC load flow (explained
later) repetitively by increasing the amount of transaction until a limit of any of
the corridor is reached. However, this is computationally inefficient. Instead, the
Power Transfer Distribution Factor (PTDF) can be used to calculate the maximum
allowable flow for a given pair of injection and take-off points. It is also
necessary to consider the effects of contingencies like line outages. This can be
achieved using Line Outage Distribution Factor (LODF). Let us first see the details
of DC load flow model.

DC Load Flow Model

Following are the assumptions when DC model is employed instead of AC model:

Voltage magnitudes are constant.
Only angles of complex bus voltages vary.
The variation in angle is small.
Transmission lines are lossless.