Southern Company History and Usage of AURORAxmp

Navigating the Swamp Scott Eiserloh, Forecasting and Model Development Principal Engineer

Aurora Electric Market Forecasting Conference, Skamania, Sept. 19, 2014

My First Computer

The Early Bird – Analog Economic Dispatch and AGC

Proprietary/Confidential – Not to be shared externally or with SPC

CC

OPCO Plant Type

GPC

APC

GULF

MPC

SPC

H Weiss Dam

Total 50,862 MW

Southern Company “Owned”

N

S

Combined Cycle (12,263 MW)

H

CT

PA

Nuclear (4,715 MW)

Steam (21,382 MW)

Combustion Turbine (5,278 MW)

Hydro (2,595 MW)

Power Purchase Agreements (4,629 MW)

H Lay Dam

H Mitchell Dam

H Martin Dam H Yates Dam

H Thurlow Dam

Sinclair Dam

Logan Martin Dam

H Neely Henry Dam

H Holt Dam

H Jordan Dam

H Bankhead Dam

H Bouldin Dam

H Riverview Dam

H Smith Dam

H Harris Dam

H Rocky Mountain

H Morgan Falls Dam

H Langdale Dam H Bartletts Ferry Dam

H Goat Rock Dam

H Oliver Dam

H North Highlands Dam

H Flint River Dam

Lloyd Shoals Dam

S Plant McManus

Wallace Dam

H Estatoah Dam H Burton Dam

H Terrora Dam

H Yonah Dam

H Nacoochee Dam

H Tugalo Dam

H Tallulah Dam S Plant Gorgas

N Plant Vogtle

S Plant Miller

S Plant Greene County

S Plant Gadsden

S Plant Bowen

S Plant Gaston

S Plant Barry

S Plant Scholz

S Plant Mitchell

S

S Plant Yates

S Plant Scherer

S Plant Hammond

S Plant McIntosh

S Plant Kraft

S Plant Smith

S Plant Watson

S Plant Daniel

S Plant Sweatt

S Plant Crist

N Plant Farley N Plant Hatch

S Plant Branch

CC Washington County

CC

CC CC Plant Theodore

CC

CC Plant Harris CC Plant Franklin

Plant Wansley CC

CC

CT Chevron Cogen

CT

CT

CT Plant Wilson

CT Plant Dahlberg

CT Plant Robins CT

PA Calhoun

PA Mid-GA Cogen PA Wash Co.

(Tiger Creek)

H

PA Solar

H

H

H

PA Monroe/Walton Co.

PA Bainbridge

CT Addison

PA Central Alabama

PA Heard Co.

Plant McDonough CC

CT

CT Cleveland County CT

Rowan County Energy Complex CC

CT

25-MW CCS Demo “World’s largest carbon capture facility on a fossil-fueled power plant”

Alabama Power Plant Barry

Absorber Regenerator

Compressor

Kemper County IGCC Project

Vogtle 3 and 4 Construction

Southern Power Company Southern Power is an unregulated wholesale energy provider. Southern Power and its subsidiaries own and operate 17 facilities in eight states, with more than 8,800 megawatts of generating capacity operating in Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina and Texas.

Proprietary/Confidential – Not to be shared externally or with SPC 9

Separation Protocol • FERC ORDER

• Non-Public retail unit specific or transmission

Information Is NOT ALLOWED to be shared with Southern Power

• Public Bulletin Board • SPC Personnel Not Allowed In Retail Work Spaces

– Electronic Security ID Cards • Term Traders cannot know non-public

transmission information • Best Practices May Be Shared

How did we get here?

• Legacy models are many in number and are frequently

being stressed • They include the many in-house developed “tools” • Comfortable, familiar processes are sometimes called

“ruts” • But they usually get us where we want to go

Search for Improvement

• Generalization • Models are developed with a specific problem(s) in mind. • All models are predisposed to look at things in a certain way • This can affect the results • The modeler has to recognize this and sometimes “manipulate or lie” to the model to

get the results that he “knows” are “better”

• What’s out there that may be “better” • Faster • More accurate • More versatile • Easier to use

• “Better” is Defined by the User

• To accomplish a large change, it takes: • Agreement ( buy-in)

• Co-ordinated Effort

• TIME

When Adopting Anything Different, Remember

Aurora Benefits

• Ease of I/O with other analysis tools through Excel • Versatility

– Zonal – Nodal – LT Resource Expansion and Retirement

• Common database and interface – Common data across uses – Facilitates training of personnel – User customizable I/O templates – Scripting capability

• Commitment to Customer Support and Model Improvement is Real

Our Computer Issues

• IT Justifiably Paranoid • Many corporate applications and servers • ~20,000 individual desktops using a common image • Severely restricted admin privileges

• For Aurora We Choose Workstation Over Server • System planning computer farm • “Local” results instead of SQL server • Plan to test solid state drive

Computing Structure

Remote Access

System Planning

Computer Farm

Gigabit Network

Corporate

Desktops for Planning

• Windows 7 Enterprise or Ultimate

• i7-3770 3.40GHz quad core

• Hyper threaded

• 12.0GB Ram

• Dual 22” Monitors

The World According to Our Energy Budget

Current Hourly Modeling • In 2012, over 2,200 Runs • Avoided Cost Studies • Unit Retirement Studies • Renewable Evaluations • Fuel Projections • General Budgeting • Portfolio Analysis • Coal Inventory Management • Gas Hedging • RTP Projections • Financial Planning • Emission Projections • Pool Transaction Projections • Capital Project Evaluations • Outage Optimization

LT Modeling Potential Uses • Retirement Analysis

• Expansion Planning –

Especially Renewables

Nodal Uses • A group within Southern Company is looking at utilizing the Nodal

Analysis capability in Aurora to apply Production Cost Modeling to physical transmission markets. This group is currently evaluating the potential benefits & challenges associated with this analysis approach.

• Potential benefits include: – Identifying system losses – Off-Peak Congestion – Estimates of Forecasted Re-dispatch Due to Congestion

• Useful Aurora Enhancements – Automated Contingency Files – Automatic Constraint Identification Reports – Ability to Model Resource Loss as Contingencies

Term Traders • SWE (Southern Wholesale Energy) is exploring the use of

AuroraXmp Nodal for LMP forecasting and congestion analysis to support various trading strategies in RTOs. The AuroraXmp’s automated scripts have the ability to retrieve market data and update the powerflow model’s load forecast, fuel prices, generator outage periods, and more in several LMP and non-LMP markets. The simulation run times are very prompt and can provide the following output: – Granular Day-Ahead/Real-Time LMP forecast(s) to nodal level – Flow-gate Constraint Impacts to RTO Hub pricing points – Additional Risk Analysis for Hedging Strategies

Southern Power Company and AURORA

22

• AURORAxmp is used by Southern Power’s Market Strategy and Assessment

group to support the development of market price forecasts for the company’s existing and targeted market areas. These forecasts are instrumental in supporting the company’s business development activities and remarketing opportunities.

• Southern Power models the Eastern Interconnect and ERCOT with a custom input database that resides on a SQL Server. The Southern Power base case is a 20 year hourly study.

• Southern Power began evaluating AURORAxmp in 2012 and successfully published its Annual Market Price Forecast using AURORAxmp in July 2014.

Enhancements of Interest • Uplift Logic – making units “whole”

• Convergent EFOR

• Script for Examining ALL Data for a Specific Resource

• Commitment and Dispatch

– Which MIP? – Run Time

• Hydro Scheduling

Convergent EFOR Effects on Dispatch

Input Checking - Single Resource Time Resolution

Call Support for Details

408000

408500

409000

409500

410000

410500

411000

411500

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001

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001

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005

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Production Cost Order

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24 8 3 1 12 4 2 24 8 3 1 12 4 2 24 8 3 1 12 4 2 24 8 3 1 12 4 2 24 8 3 1 12 4 2 24 8 3 1 12 4 2 24 8 3 1 12 4 2 24 8 3 1 12 4 2 24 8 3 1 12 4 2

Hour

s for

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Year

s

Hours Sampled

20 Year Est. Run Times With Gurobi 0.01 2

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Data missing due to timing across midnight.

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120

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Run-Of-River Hydro

Output

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Set Energy Shift Method = 0 To Get Fixed Output

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18001 19 37 55 73 91 109

127

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433

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469

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577

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649

667

685

703

721

739

Weekly

Monthly

Demand

Peak Shaving Hydro Example

Retirement Analysis • Appears to meet our needs, but has not been sufficiently explored

– Dilemma – what is fixed and what is variable? – Must appropriately structure the data to fit Aurora – Some important items affecting resource retirement decisions

are not directly quantifiable • Personnel • Local economy impacts

– Method and results must meet scrutiny of PSC.

Current Approach for LT Expansion Planning

Area 1

Area 2

Unlimited Flows

Retail Only Expansion • DSO’s – Resource; 100% @ Peak, But Always on Maintenance • Purchase Transactions Modeled as Resources • Some resources which are obligated to third parties are not

accounted for in the expansion plan. • A plan may be “profitable”, but can it also be least cost to retail • Stop on least cost option is not the same as least production cost

LT Issues Continued • Can over-build relative to annual reserve margin requirements be

least cost? – Might this result in a lower total production cost? – Even if it does, there could be near term rate impacts. – New option to “minimize reserve margin” may address this issue. – Can we get comfortable with the different way end effects are handled – Are the solutions “close enough” compared to what we are used to?

CONCLUSION

• EPIS Commitment to Customer Support and Model Improvement is Real

QUESTIONS?

Proprietary/Confidential – Not to be shared externally or with SPC 37

Nacogdoches Generating Facility – 100 MW

Proprietary/Confidential – Not to be shared externally or with SPC 38

CIMARRON SOLAR FACILITY – 30 MW

Lloyd Shoals Dam – 14 MW Capacity – 6 Units Martin Dam – 186 MW Capacity – 4 Units

Wallace Dam 321.3 MW – 6 Units, 4 Reversible for PSH Rock Mountain PSH Facility – 1095 MW with 613 Foot Head