A View of the Power System in the 21st Century and a Concept of System Margin Applied to Capability Coordination between Generation and Transmission Sectors

Abstract

In recent years, various inexperienced events with uncertain factors, such as a competitive electricity market, tend to gradually take place surrounding the actual electric power industry. Towards the mid-21st century, most of these tendencies, keeping steady pace with global trends, will become more prominent and still widely increased in Japan. Under such a changing and ambiguous situation of these days, it is of great significance to establish a national view of the ideal electricity supply in the 21st century. To cope with the relevant technological problems from the standpoint of sustainable development is a challenging and timely task for today's power system engineers.This paper provides fundamental requirements for the future adequate power system especially in terms of supply capability coordination between generation and transmission sectors. It is noted that a newly proposed concept of “System Margin” is utilized as an evaluation index for the effective use of existing system components. A numerical example incorporating the suggested ideas is then presented for a simple trunk power system model. Finally, concluding remarks are shortly summarized, and a few related considerations and further research study topics are also supplemented.