An overview of ancillary services and alternative auction design in a deregulated environment
- Illinois Inst. of Tech., Chicago, IL (United States). Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering
According to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), ancillary services (A/S) support the transmission of energy from sellers to purchasers given the obligation of control areas and transmitting utilities within those control areas to maintain reliable operations of the interconnected transmission system. Since FERC published its March 1995 rule on open access transmission networks, A/S have been debated widely as an important topic in energy deregulation. The rule defined six ancillary services and developed pro forma tariffs for these services. These services account for 5% to 25% of total generation and transmission costs, with an average of 10%. Based on the US generation of 2,900,000 GWh in 1994, A/S cost almost $12 billion a year. Operating reserves account for the bulk of A/S costs; reliability (spinning reserve) averages 16% of total cost and supplemental (non-spinning reserve) average 18% of total cost. Real power losses are 30% and voltage control represents 12% of total costs. Energy imbalances, assuming 1% of customer loads are subject to this penalty, are 11% of the total cost. Load following averages 9% and scheduling and dispatch accounts for 4% of the total cost. Due to a substantial range in A/S costs and the lack of correlation between these costs and underlying costs of generation and transmission, more work is needed to identify how much of each A/S is required and how to price these services.
- Research Organization:
- Illinois Inst. of Tech., Chicago, IL (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 696715
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-990410--PROC.-Vol.1
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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