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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2023.10.13 IMC Executed MinutesIMC Meeting Minutes Page 1 of 10 Alaska Intertie Management Committee (IMC) REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Alaska Energy Authority Board Room Friday, October 13, 2023 1. CALL TO ORDER Chair Andrew Laughlin called the meeting of the Alaska Intertie Management Committee to order on October 13, 2023, at 11:00 a.m. 2. ROLL CALL OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS Members present: Ed Jenkin (Matanuska Electric Association (MEA)); Andrew Laughlin (Chugach Electric Association (CEA)); John Burns (Golden Valley Electric Association (GVEA)): and Bill Price (Alaska Energy Authority (AEA)). A quorum was established to conduct business. 3. PUBLIC ROLL CALL Lance Mckimson (MEA); Rob Wilson (MEA); Joel Paisner (IMC Counsel); Travis (GVEA); Mark Ziesmer (AEA); Pamela Ellis (AEA); Jon Sinclair (MEA); Bryan Carey (AEA); Russel Thornton (CEA); Mike Miller (CEA); Sarah Villalon; Jennifer Bertolini, (AEA). 4. PUBLIC COMMENTS - none 5. AGENDA APPROVAL MOTION: Mr. Ed Jenkin moved to approve the Agenda as presented. Vice Chair John Burns seconded the motion. The Agenda was approved without objection. 6. APPROVAL OF PRIOR MINUTES – July 23, 2023 MOTION: Vice Chair John Burns moved to approve the Meeting Minutes of July 23, 2023. Mr. Bill Price seconded the motion. The Minutes were approved without objection. 7. NEW BUSINESS 7a. Primary Frequency Response Standard Chair Laughlin introduced this item and Mr. Jon Sinclair, MEA, presented. He stated that the Intertie Operating Committee (IOC) is still reviewing this standard and currently does not have IMC Meeting Minutes Page 2 of 10 any specific or official recommendations. However, he wanted to give management committee members an idea of what is and what is not in the standard from a high level overview. This is a proposed standard on how to handle primary frequency response. This standard has an equation in it to make sure that your frequency, your units, respond quickly enough to handle any disturbance for the largest single generator. The equation is a way to make sure whatever units you have on will have a fast enough spin to counter disturbances before we go down the frequency load shed. That is covered in this standard. No one individual unit can cause you to go to under frequency load shed. What is not covered is a discussion on tie lines and how we’re how we are going to deal with them because that is covered in another standard. So, he’s bringing up a philosophical question of how do we want to handle that. If a tie line is at 80 megawatts and we're only spinning for 60 because that's the largest unit, are we okay with that or not? That question is not addressed in this standard. The other question that's not addressed is what utility or what load balancing area provides what, as far as spin goes. The standard does say you have to provide for the largest single generation unit, but it doesn't slice and dice that out between the different load balancing areas. And lastly, there is an RRC being formed that will ultimately be in charge of standards. Jon has been in contact with the chair of the RRC and obtained a copy of their draft procedure. The process is pretty extensive, includes a public comment period, and can take months to complete. Do we integrate this primary frequency response standard into their approval process? If so, we need to move quickly on this. However, the concern is that if we follow their approval process, this standard may not be implemented for a while. How do you want to proceed with creating this standard, knowing that we have had recent under frequency load sheds? Do we follow the RRC process, knowing they will ultimately have responsibility, or do we address this pretty quickly, move this forward, and then when the RCC gets to it, they get to it and run it through their approval process, which includes the public comment period? How does the committee wish to proceed? Vice Chair Burns commented that he found this report fascinating. He’s read it several times. He recommends moving forward with implementing standards that we think are appropriate. Then the RRC can revisit those at a later date, sync them up, whatever. Let’s not wait for the RRC. He did have a few questions. He did see that everybody could count their best, but there was no requirement synchronization, you could include it. But how is it going to be controlled? How are the best synchronized for the rail belt? Or do they even need to be in the context of this? Mr. Sinclair responded that the standard does not address syncing them, which theoretically, you could have a concern if we don't want LDAs fighting each other. But this specifically didn't speak to, for example, communication between them. It just said you can use them for spin. IMC Meeting Minutes Page 3 of 10 And Tesla batteries are pretty good, at least the Homer ones are. They give that energy really quickly. They've proven that. So it does provide quick spin. As far as communication, though, and making sure you don't have two different LDAs fighting each other, that's not specifically addressed in here. It’s our standard, so we can have this or another standard address any concerns between communication or you want to make sure that whatever you do to arrest an event does not make it worse. Vice Chair Burns commented that the standard says what the standards are and what you should do and how we're going to measure it. But assuming that one of the LBAS doesn't live up to what their responsibility is, what's the consequence? Mr. Sinclair concurred that there are no consequences and no real reason as to why not. However, it’s our standard, so we can do what we want with it. If we want to add some type of consequence, we could definitely do that. Vice Chair Burns recommends that we at least look at that. You want to have standards that everybody's going to be motivated to meet. Mr. Jenkin appreciates Mr. Burns' comments. Concerning consequences, if he recalls correctly, there are measurements and what it means if you fail that measurement and the level of severity of failure of that measurement. So, in general, for penalties, there is an overall matrix associated with standards. And depending upon your level of severity of failure, it comes with a specific penalty. This matrix was adopted, and I assume this standard, just like all the other standards, would fall under that matrix to identify the level of penalty. Obviously that matrix hasn't been revisited for quite a number of years and he anticipates the RRC will revisit that matrix because we don't very severely penalize ourselves in those type of things. Mr. Sinclair concurred that the standard doesn’t reference the matrix. Mr. Jenkin added that if you fail, what level of severity is that failure, then we can reference it back to the overall matrix. He stated that the transmission standard allows for loss of firm load with respect to single contingencies. So the transmission standard allows for loss of load. He appreciates that this primary frequency response standard does not address that here because he doesn’t want to see a conflict between those standards. If we're going to address the need to carry spinning reserve for loss of transmission lines, then he suggests that we also address what's in the existing transmission planning standard, which says it's okay to lose load. It doesn't make sense to have both. What is being promoted here is similar to an existing Alaska Rail Belt standard, AKBL 002, which addresses disturbance control performance. In that standard under requirement number two, it says each reliability organization or reserve sharing group shall specify its contingency reserve policies. In addition, the standard requires us to: • Determine what is the minimum reserve for the group. We will need a study to identify that. IMC Meeting Minutes Page 4 of 10 • Identify any regional limitations to where spinning reserve is required. • Look at what’s a permissible mix. • Determine what is the allocation among members of the group. Members is defined as members of the load sharing group, which includes Homer Electric. And I know we’ve kicked allocation down the road. But I think as the IOC oversees the development of this work on identifying reserves, I would prefer that whatever gets done would bring us into compliance with what's required in AKBL 002, and that includes everything you're doing, plus its allocation amongst members. If we're going to develop a policy associated with 002 or maybe a rewrite of 002, I'd like to see the committee take up all the requirements of the policy. In addition, I’d hate to come up with a process and a policy that doesn't address how Homer fits into this overall requirement on how we manage spinning reserves. Because I don't think you can do that with only the three of the four utilities. I know Homer participates in a lot of these meetings. I know they are a member of the SSS and have a voting position there. I don't know how to incorporate them in, but I know in order to comply with AKBL 002, you're going to have to incorporate Homer into those discussions and get them involved and come up with some agreement on allocation methodology. And I know that's a large ask because we've only been 20 years and haven't been able to do that. Lastly, concerning RRC policies. No matter what we do here, they're going to have to conform to their policies when they revisit any standard we do. So even if we adopt the standard, before the RRC adopts it, the standard will eventually go through their public process. I agree, again, with Mr. Burns. Let's not burden this process. We've seen an event where our existing policies in place failed to keep us out of load shed when they should have. So let's address that and fix it. And let's address the allocation issue too, so that we are brought a little closer into compliance with AKBL 002. Chair Laughlin responded that he agrees that we should not wait on the RRC and continue this process forward. So I think at least the three of us, and we’ll let Bill speak his opinion on with regard to RRC. Mr. Price stated that RRC members had no resistance to us moving ahead with this. They're fully supportive. A lot of them were cheering us along in that meeting. So I think there's not going to be any resistance there. And just like you mentioned, Ed, there's a lot of standards that are going to have to go through their process and adoption. With regard to Homer, one of the things that they referenced when this was brought up in their presence is just they wanted to see that the RRC was involved. They expressed concern that the RRC would interpret us as trying to go around them. Where they have that responsibility, but they're not capable of doing it yet. So I think we've checked enough boxes. I think we'll be able to meet those requirements. He asked Mr. Sinclair, if he would he agreed with that assessment, based off of what he’d seen in some of those meetings? IMC Meeting Minutes Page 5 of 10 Mr. Sinclair responded that he would agree. There was definitely strong concern from Homer on how this process is going to move forward. So we want to be sensitive to that and understand that they do not participate in the IMC or the IOC formally. So, trying to incorporate something that slices and dices, who's going to pick up what spin? Somehow we'd have to include them. Not sure the manner in which we would do that. The BPMC was recommended by Homer and passing this to them. But I'm open to ideas, thoughts on that process. Mr. Jenkin commented that when we went through this process for the unified set of standards that we all adopted, it was managed through the IOC with Homer invited in. Basically, we developed a consensus document. We can do the same approach here. Work it through the IOC with Homer Electric invited into those discussions. The goal would be to come up with a consensus document that everyone agrees they can sign. Then we shouldn't have a problem. If we can’t acquire a consensus document, then it has to be elevated to an organization where there are formal votes from everybody represented, including Homer, and dealt with through a formal voting process. I suggest we continue under the expectation that we can get a consensus document out of this. Come back next meeting and let us know how that's going. Chair Laughlin thanked Ed for his comments. He asked Mr. Sinclair if at the IMCs next meeting will he have a recommendation for the committee to review and approve, or will he need more time. Mr. Sinclair responded that what Mr. Jenkin brought up is a conceptual change. This is a standard and Mr. Jenkin was pointing towards a policy with a study instead. What direction does the IMC want to go in. Will these be two separate efforts or just a shift of focus. Mr. Jenkin stated that the study has already been accomplished within the last year. It has all the information we need. So it doesn’t need to be redone. He’s ambivalent as to whether it’s a policy that falls under AKBL 002 or under a NERC standard. Prefer we not have a standard that is unique. We can leave it up to Mr. Sinclair recommendation. He just believes that there are options that the committee can choose from. Mr. Thornton, stated that the study that’s been performed looked at reserve performance. The scope of that study specifically excluded the allocation methodology. So, there may need to be an expanded scope for the study to look at allocation implications when it comes to reserve performance. Chair Laughlin stated that at this point, we'll send it back to the IOC to look at the past study work and come back with a recommendation on what this new policy looks like, whether it's going to be through AKBL 002 or through this new standard we're developing. Vice Chair Burns stated that we need to finalize these standards and then evaluate what Ed is talking about on the allocation. If you don't think that, at this juncture, you have enough information to be able to do that, then have an additional study to include more information. But I don't see any reason why we can't move forward with the standard, knowing that we're going to come back and expand on it as appropriate, rather than have everything on hold as we're waiting for some of this reconciliation. If we have to include the allocation and Homer on IMC Meeting Minutes Page 6 of 10 top of it, then that gets elevated to the BPMC level for a broader vote. I'd like to see you guys make progress and get us to the point where you've got some final recommendations. Mr. Jenkin stated that 002 was modified because there was no agreement. Therefore, rather than try to create all the documents, we didn't have agreement on or to get unified standards, it was decided to do a policy. So, 002 has already been somewhat adjusted. Again, I'm perfectly good with the standard, and if we need another standard, we'll take another standard. If we can combine the two standards, that works to whichever way you gentlemen and ladies want to progress with it. Chair Laughlin thanked everyone for the discussion and asked Mr. Sinclair if he has enough information to move forward. Mr. Sinclair responded that he does. He wasn’t sure of the timing at this point, especially if we're going to include HEA. However, with this information, he will get something, either a policy or a standard, which incorporates all of their comments, in front of the committee in the future. He just doesn’t know if it's going to be in December. Mr. Jenkin wanted to clarify that he’s not firm on making sure that HEA is part of the process now. And concerning the standards, he thinks you have gone far enough. We talked about the best, maybe the consequences a little bit, adding that to these standards and then figuring out where and at what point you can bring HEA in on the allocation side. He sees it more as a parallel path if that provides any more clarity for you guys. We want to make it easy for you, so we can get it across the finish line. Mr. Sinclair responded that we certainly could try to incorporate HEA. Maybe they're like, great, let's do whatever percentage and we're all good. But if not, I can remove that, and we just won't talk about what the share is for each one. That won't be in the standard for now. It didn't happen last time, so it might not happen this time either. But I'll get something to you, hopefully by the next meeting. Chair Laughlin thanked Mr. Sinclair for his presentation. 7b. Douglas Substation Control Enclosure Mr. Sinclair directed committee members to a photo in their packet and stated that crews were recently up at the Douglas Substation Control enclosure doing maintenance when they noticed that the substation was no longer level. The southside is about eight inches higher than the northside. We researched the installation of the substation and found that the piles were down 31 feet. So, it’s odd to have it jacking like it is. The control cables were under some tension, so we made some retrofits to make sure the cables had some slack. To resolve this, we will bring back the engineer of record to take a look at the situation. I don’t anticipate a lot of cost for this review. However, depending on what he finds, there may be a request for unbudgeted funds to do some remediation on this substation. So, this is more of a heads up for the committee. Chair Laughlin asked if there were any questions for Mr. Sinclair. Hearing none, he thanked Mr. Sinclair for his report and we’ll see him back in December with an update and potentially a proposed budget amendment. IMC Meeting Minutes Page 7 of 10 7c. FERC Order 866 Communications between Control Centers Chair Laughlin asked Mr. Jenkin to speak to this item. Mr. Jenkin stated that there is a new developed and approved NERC standard, 6012, which directly deals with communication between control centers. I haven’t reviewed it. This is my suggestion that we have somebody review it to see how it may apply to the rail belt and if we have any concerns with compliance of this standard or do we need to make any changes to our operations.. There is a working group of all utilities. We have a SCADA communications group that works through the IMC. Chair Laughlin asked Mr. Sinclair if this review can be assigned to the IOC to take it to the telecom subcommittee. Mr. Sinclair responded, yes. 8. OLD BUSINESS - none 9. COMMITTEE REPORTS 9a. Budget to Actuals Report- AEA Mr. Ziesmer went over the Intertie Budge to Actual revenue expenses report from July 1 to August 31, 2023, with committee members. Revenue was more than budgeted by $194,277 due to higher than anticipated energy usage for the period. Actual operating expenses were less than budgeted by $542,659 due to timing of invoices vs. annualized budget put into the report. Administrative expenses were negligible because payroll wasn’t processed at the time the report was prepared. So the result of revenues and expenses is currently showing a surplus of $1,127,455 due mostly to the July receipt of the capacity revenue and timing of processing for expenses. As a reminder, capacity revenue is invoiced to utilities normally in July and usually gives a large bump in revenue early in the fiscal year. 9b. IOC Report Mr. Sinclair stated that committee members have his report in front of them. We’ve already discussed the primary frequency response standard. The next item is the Draft Wildfire Mitigation Plan. We are currently reviewing a draft plan and don’t have any comments on that right now. The other item related to wildfire that came up in the past few days is grant funding for wildfire mitigation. The intent of the grant is to reduce the cost of clearing a 100 foot right-of-way through use of herbicides and other methods. Then once the trees and vegetation die back, replace them with grass or flowers that spread out and inhibit the growth of larger trees or vegetation to grow in that area. It will take the first couple of years for the trees and vegetation to die and then replanting will happen for the next three years. By doing this, in the long run you significantly reduce your clearing costs by approximately $500,000 over a five-year period. However, by applying for this grant, it does obligate the IMC to provide matching funds of $600,000 during this same period. This money would come out of the existing clearing budget. IMC Meeting Minutes Page 8 of 10 But your $1.2 million cost would drop significantly. Since this grant announcement just hit the streets yesterday, these are all estimates. But it’s a new concept of clearing vegetation, which is why there is grant money that we can apply for now. Or we can wait and apply for grant funding later. Mr. Jenkin wanted to let committee members know that MEA is partnering with the State Department of Agriculture in pursuing this grant for their transmission line areas. There’s no significant expense on MEAs part, so there’s no asking for funds in development of this application. It’s clearing an area, planting grass and then it’s specific application of herbicides to tree stumps as opposed to a wide spray of herbicides. This looks like it would be beneficial for intertie lines as well. Committee members discussed who would apply for this grant, as it would be beneficial for the north and south areas of the intertie. If MEA is applying for the grant, would Golden Valley be applying for grant funds as well. We should take advantage of this funding opportunity. Per Mr. Sinclair, we can submit multiple grant applications. We can submit just ours; we can submit northern tie; we can submit multiple grants for multiple areas over time. It’s whatever resources are available to prepare and submit the applications and what the committee decides to do. Vice Chair Burns would like to see the IMC provide a letter of support to whoever is applying for the grant, whether it’s MEA, GVEA and so on. MOTION: Mr. Ed Jenkin moved to have the Intertie Management Committee (IMC) provide a letter in support of grant application(s) for wildfire mitigation activities. Vice Chair John Burns seconded the motion. The motion passed without objection. AEA staff will prepare a letter for the committee chair to sign. Mr. Price directed committee members’ attention back to the draft wildfire mitigation plan. What we currently have is not so much a draft plan as it is a scope of services to prepare a plan. We have a contract with Dowl to produce the actual plan itself, which could be anywhere from a one page document to a 100-page document. There’s a wide range with how far we can go with a wildfire mitigation plan. However, we don’t want to over commit the utilities to what they will actually do. So, this document is a draft scope of services to create that plan. We’re asking for your feedback on the scope and how far you want to go with it. There is liability to consider as well. Mr. Price asked committee members to give feedback and direction to their IOC representative so we can get Dowl started on preparing the plan. Mr. Sinclair stated that other items on the summary are SSS is continuing to work on the synchrophaser (ph) project, which is ongoing--probably through 2024. Other item of note for the SSS is the NREL study on IBRs. We're finalizing the NDAs and then we can request data, collect data and move forward with the study. Also under SSS, we're looking at doing some IMC Meeting Minutes Page 9 of 10 studies at what 230 upgrades would look like for the intertie. So that scope is being developed and we hope to move that forward in 2024. Under SCADA and Telecommunications, there is construction moving forward to tie in communications from Anchorage to Douglas. We're working with Dan to get a scope of work at GVEA between Douglas and Healy. Once completed, we’ll do the same thing that we did with the Douglas to Anchorage comms. So both are in process and moving forward. That is my report. Chair Laughlin asked if there were any questions or comments. Hearing none, he moved on to the next agenda item. 9c. Operator’s Report Mr. Thornton reported that the inter tie usage from July, 2022, to August, 2023, is up 66%. This is led by Golden Valley's increased usage of the Alaska intertie by 77%. MEA has also increased their usage by about 18%. There have been three Alaska intertie trips since our last meeting. The first one was on September 15, Douglas to Teland trip. As a result of a fault on the hospital line, the 115, this was identified as a relay issue. I believe that issue has been identified and corrected since that event. The second two intertie trips happened very recently, October 9th and 10th. They were both (indiscernible) phase faults, both identified in the same location. I believe the patrol was done on the line, not identifying any cause. It is assumed that at least potential cause might be Avian birds on the line. It has been a very active period. We've seen multiple under frequency events on the system for a variety of causes. I won't get into that. At the end of the day, I believe the outages have been identified and analyzed. The key one of that is an under frequency load shed event. This was caused by five units tripping at EGS. Because it was five units, it was a 74 megawatt event. We were spinning for just under 60 megawatts. The largest unit at that time was one of Chugach’s units at 60 megawatts. Because of the fact that five generators tripped, that certainly meets the standard for an under frequency load shed event. As with most of these under frequency load shed events, all the utilities were restored relatively quickly. That concludes my report. Chair Laughlin asked if there was any system beta for these events. Mr. Thornton responded that our system beta for those events was on average 8.4. So, a little better than we’ve been performing. It’s been in the sevens prior to this. Of course, we're heading into Fall. More inertia on the system, so that probably makes good sense. Chair Laughlin asked if there were any questions or comments on the operator report. Hearing none, he thanked Mr. Thornton for his report. 10. MEMBER COMMENTS Mr. Jenkin had no comments. Mr. Price had no comments other than thank you to members.