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This paper presents a methodological framework to evaluate the resilience, with the primary focus on performance degradation, of levee-protected electric power networks to flooding in a changing climate. To this end, a multi-disciplinary framework is established by integrating climate science, hydrology, and electric power network analysis. The framework quantifies the effect of climate change on flood hazard levels in a levee-protected area and the subsequent changes in the resilience of the electric power network. In the first step, the changes in the exposure of levee-protected regions to flooding hazard in a warming climate are calculated. Then, the probabilities of failure of power network components due to flooding under current and projected future climate are determined. Finally, the power system resilience index is used to assess the system resiliency for pre-flooding (baseline), historic flooding, and two projected future flooding scenarios. For demonstration, the proposed framework is applied to a levee-protected area in Northern California. The IEEE 118-bus standard test system is employed to represent the power network in the study area. Results reveal that climate change can considerably decrease the system resilience of the levee-protected electric power network. The findings of this study can contribute towards more resilient power network systems under a changing climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a stochastic model is proposed for a joint statistical description of solar photovoltaic (PV) power and outdoor temperature. The underlying correlation emerges from solar irradiance that is responsible in part for both the variability in solar PV power and temperature. The proposed model can be used to capture the uncertainty in solar PV power and its correlation with the electric power consumption of thermostatically controlled loads. First, a model for solar PV power that explicitly incorporates the stochasticity due to clouds via a regime-switching process between the three classes of sunny, overcast and partly cloudy is proposed. Then, the relationship between temperature and solar power is postulated using a second-order Volterra model. This joint modeling is leveraged to develop a joint probabilistic forecasting method for solar PV power and temperature. Real-world datasets that include solar PV power and temperature measurements in California are analyzed and the effectiveness of the joint model in providing probabilistic forecasts is verified. The proposed forecasting methodology outperforms several reference methods thus portraying that the underlying correlation between temperature and solar PV power is well defined and only requires a simple lower-complexity sampling space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes the impact of integrating wind generation on the regulation and load following requirements of the California Independent System Operator (CAISO). These requirements are simulated and compared for the study cases with and without wind generation impacts included into the study for the years 2006 and 2010. Regulation and load following models were built based on hour-ahead and five-minute ahead load and wind generation forecasts. In 2006, the CAISO system peaked at 50270 MW. Wind generation (at the installed capacity of 2600 MW) had limited impact on the requirement of load following and regulation in the CAISO Balancing Authority. However, in 2010 (with an expected installed capacity of approximately 6700 MW), this impact will significantly increase. The results provide very useful information for the CAISO to adjust its scheduling and real-time dispatch systems to reliably accommodate future wind generation additions within the CAISO Balancing Authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study on an intelligent simulator to examine why a price hike occurred in the California electricity crisis. A multiagent intelligent simulator (MAIS) is compared with other methods, such as neural network (NN) and genetic algorithm (GA), using a real data set on power trading related to the crisis. The comparison showed that MAIS and the other methods performed in predicting the price fluctuation of wholesale electricity. Findings indicate that the price hike was due to an increase in fuel prices and real demand.

Presents information on the restructuring efforts of the California electric market caused by changes in electric wholesale and retail market in the area. Independent system operator (ISO); Power exchange; Impact on system reliability; Challenges in the implementation of ISO.