Context

Adapted and lightly edited from: http://www.itesla-project.eu/project.html

Pan-European transmission system security issues will become more and more challenging due to:

• the growing contribution of renewable energy sources;
• the introduction of new controllable devices;
• a partially controllable electricity demand; the increasing difficulty to build new overhead transmission lines;
• and the progressive construction of a single European electricity market.

This will result in more complex system operation, a grid working closer to its operational limits and therefore a need for a major revision of operational rules and procedures. Coordinated operation initiatives have already emerged for different regions of the pan-European transmission system (CORESO, TSC), but they require a new generation of tools allowing the different TSOs to increase coordination. The iTESLA project is developing such a toolbox, which will bring forward a major innovation: carry out operational dynamic simulations in the frame of a full probabilistic approach, thus optimizing the transit capacities of the grid at different spatial (national, regional, Pan-European) and time (two-day ahead, day-ahead, intra-day, real-time) scales.

Summary

Adapted and lightly edited from: http://www.itesla-project.eu/index.html

The iTesla project aimed at improving network operations with a new security assessment tool able to: (a) cope with increasingly uncertain operating conditions, and (b) take advantage of the growing flexibility of the grid. The tool developed aims at helping the operator assess network security in real time and ease decision-making. The prototype is designed for network operation from two-days ahead up to real time, and from single TSO level to coordinated regional or pan-European level. Security assessment is performed:

• according to the probability and potential impact of the various contingencies (risk-based approach),
• taking into account the different sources of uncertainties (loads, Renewable Energy Sources),
• in real time (online), relying on prior (offline) security analysis taking dynamic phenomena into account.

The tool provides operators with relevant evaluation of curative remedial actions so as to keep the system in a secure state.