Letters to the Editor / Corrections, Clarifications

Fortnightly Magazine - November 2004
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Letters to the Editor

To the Editor:

Robert Blohm's article, "Solving the Crisis in Unscheduled Power," () ignores a significant part of the power-scheduling paradigm-that is, it ignores transmission. Every power schedule not only includes load and generation but also a path to move the electricity between those points.

The Blohm solution would have paid American Electric Power to provide frequency response for the utilities in Florida during the August hurricanes without any payment going to the Tennessee Valley Authority or Southern Co., across whose transmission lines the power necessarily flowed. All parties should be paid, as is consistent with the findings of the Joint Inadvertent Interchange Taskforce (JIITF) that inadvertent interchange has a transmission-related value.

While investigating the unscheduled power issue in preparation for writing "Tie Riding Freeloaders-the True Impediment to Transmission Access" (), I was concerned not only about Area Control Error (ACE), the net unscheduled difference among load, generation, and interchange, but also about loop flow, the unscheduled use of transmission and distribution equipment. As I said 15 years ago, "The various unscheduled electricity deliveries each get priced at WOLF (Wide Open Load Following). WOLF thus provides compensation to the owner of the transmission lines connecting the systems." I have discussed this need with Robert both when he visited my home and when we have met at the JIITF, the Inadvertent Interchange Payback Taskforce (IIPTF), and other meetings.

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