Power Loading Reduction

In the power utility industry, independent system operators (ISOs) are quasi-governmental organizations that serve as neutral market-makers between power generation companies and consumers to help ensure the power grid performs at maximum efficiency and reliability. While they don’t own generation, transmission, or distribution assets, nine ISOs play an important role to balance the supply and demand for power in North America.

Dramatic increases in real-time power prices often result in sharp load reductions, as commercial energy consumers increase onsite generation and shut down their equipment for several minutes or more to avoid paying top dollar. ISOs need to manage their power supply following these load reduction events to prevent outages when the load returns to normal.

The ISO’s engineers used Seeq advanced analytics software to identify load-change events and quantify the magnitude of each event based on price changes. Seeq’s application provided a load forecast model to the ISO’s operators.