Reliability
$230 million to $340 million
Reliability is our top priority. As such, not only do we consider it our job to keep an eye on what is happening on the system, but to identify how we can strengthen our abilities and the capabilities of the high voltage transmission system in the Midwest. We are responsible for managing the reliable transmission of energy in 15 states and one Canadian province.
The Midwest ISO’s broad regional view and state of the art reliability tool set enables improved reliability for the region. These impacts are seen in three tangible categories:
Outage Probability – Analysis of Transmission Loading Relief (TLR) data as a proxy for outage probability indicates that the Midwest ISO reduces the probability of system related loss-of-load by 64 percent.
Outage Size – Analysis of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) disturbance data indicates that the Midwest ISO and other regional transmission companies reduce the size of outages by 32 percent.
Outage Duration - Analysis of NERC disturbance data also indicates that the Midwest ISO and other regional transmission companies reduce the duration of outages by 18 percent.
Using these components, the Midwest ISO valued the improvement in reliability using the following equation:
Reliability Benefit = Size of Outage x Duration of Outage x Probability of Outage x
Cost of Outage
The Midwest ISO estimated the size of an outage to be reduced by 118 MW (a 32 percent reduction) and the duration of an outage being reduced by 7.6 hours (an 18 percent reduction). The probability of an outage was estimated to be 9.6 times less per year. The reductions cited above are measured relative to each member managing their portion of the transmission system without the tools or market-based method for managing congestion used by the Midwest ISO.
The cost of an outage was estimated to range from $7,440 per MWh to $11,160 per MWh of unserved demand. The net result of multiplying the reduction in size, duration and probability of an outage by the cost of an outage is a reliability benefit that ranges from $15.9 million to $23.8 million for small scale outages.
The same valuation methodology applied to large scale outages resulted in a reliability benefit that ranges from $210.4 million to $315.6 million per year. Combined with the small scale outage benefits the combined reliability benefit ranges from $230 to $240 million per year.
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