Page 8 - North American Clean Energy January February 2018 Issue

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JANUARY•FEBRUARY2018 /// www.nacleanenergy.com
CONSIDERING THE RECENT REPORTS THAT WIND POWER
capacity recently surpassed hydroelectric capacity in the U.S. for the rst time (AWEA, 2017), it only makes sense that U.S. regulators would like to capture performance data as part of the Generating Availability Data System (GADS) reporting program. Actually, GADS for wind generators started about 10 years ago, with participation from the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), Independent System Operators (ISOs), software vendors, operators, and manufacturers. e North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) has promoted the upcoming requirements with webinars, classes, and presentations at AWEA conferences. However, even with past e orts to introduce and educate on GADS, collecting the data for reporting will be no small endeavor, and stakeholders in the wind industry are asking how this data will be used, and more importantly, what does this mean for our operational, technical, and compliance departments?
Let’s start with a little background on GADS. e electric utility industry initiated GADS back in 1982, to collect data for conventional power generation; the start of data collection activities really
began as far back as 1963. e NERC GADS program is mandatory
for conventional generating units that are 20MW and larger, and maintains operating histories on more than 7,700 conventional generating units in the North America (GADS, 2017). e program was developed to provide a source of data for reliability statistics and high- level outage analysis. It is widely used by industry analysts in a variety of applications, including operational and nancial forecasting. Like GADS for conventional generators, NERC assigns an Identi cation code to a wind generation site (sub-group) that remains with that generation site through any ownership changes or mergers. is allows NERC to accurately track the performance of a speci c site over time, regardless of ownership.
NERC is phasing in the program for wind generators with milestones, to both minimize the impact on industry, and to ensure that their systems can handle the anticipated amount of data that they will collect. GADS Wind (GADS-W) reporting requirements are mandatory for wind plants with a total installed capacity of 75 MW or more, and with a commissioning date of January 1, 2005 or later. Generation Operators will be required to report on a quarterly basis according to the following phased-in schedule:
• January 1, 2018: Mandatory reporting begins for plants with a Total Installed Capacity of 200 MW or larger;
• January 1, 2019: Mandatory reporting begins for plants with a Total Installed Capacity of 100 MW or larger; and
• January 1, 2020: Mandatory reporting begins for plants with a Total Installed Capacity of 75 MW or larger.
by Todd Chwialkowski
But how is this data being used? NERC
has great interest in the availability data to
prevent outages, gauge regional capacity,
reliability reporting, and modeling
for generation resources. is helps
NERC understand changes in resource
availability/performance. e data is
also used for unavailability (outage)
analysis. As an example of GADS use, data
is collected to speci cally track outages
due to components such as electronics,
sensors, hydraulics, rotor blades, gearbox
issues, or yaw/pitch systems. As part of an
availability analysis, this data is incredibly
important for decision-making processes,
and the calculation and measurement of
both event and condition‐driven risks. Like
the conventional generators, unavailability
is classi ed by their type: forced,
maintenance, or planned. A unique data
element for the wind industry concerning
availability is fuel. Fuel can be a problem
for conventional generators, especially for
hydropower, where fuel (or water) is a de nite factor. Wind power’s critical fuel source is completely out of an operator’s control. For that reason, a unique data element was created to accommodate the ever-changing fuel level: Resource Unavailable Turbine Hours, or RUTH. Wind turbine generators have speci cations (normal operating range) for wind speed and temperature. When the resource is outside the working envelope for the turbine, but the turbine IS AVAILABLE, the hours are referred to as RUTH. For GADS-W reporting, RUTH is considered available hours. RUTH indicates the number of turbine hours that fall outside of the operating speci cations of the wind turbine due to environmental conditions. For those looking at the plant’s output capability (i.e., ISO) RUTH periods may be considered as unavailable hours.
e data submitted to NERC is con dential, but one of the bene ts of the reporting data is that benchmarking data is available to industry participants that follow
the GADS-W reporting requirements, to the level of participation in the GADS-W program. is data can be used for baseline or comparability analysis, and to improve forecasting the performance of generators.
What does all of this mean for your operation? GADS-W reporting will require planning, new processes, and coordination for the reporting entities. Reporting is an ongoing activity for an organization, and can be automated to a certain degree. e information is gathered on a monthly basis, but reported quarterly through NERC’s web-based application. e quarterly reporting consists of submitting three les (as spreadsheets or in CSV format): Sub-Group, Performance, and Component Outage
NERC GADS
Reporting
to Include
Wind Power