Energizing the Future: Integration of Renewable Energy onto the Texas Electric Grid

Abstract

This research first understands how wind energy has affected the Texas Interconnection over the past ten years and the reasons why the state of Texas has thrived in the wind energy market. Extensive studies and official reports from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas determine that an estimation of 8.6 GW of wind generation will be added onto the grid from the years 2017 through 2019. The next step in this research used a synthetic base case of the Texas grid within PowerWorld that already contained over 2000 busses and 543 generators. Twenty-five new generators with 7.5 MW worth of capacity were added to the Texas Synthetic Grid Case. To fix all overloaded lines, over an estimated $1.03 billion worth of elements such as new transmission lines, high voltage buses, and transformers were added to the case to provide a potential solution. The total project cost over an estimated $12.4 billion which shows how easily costs can accrue in the energy world. This paper illustrates the many variables to take into account when adding new wind generation because one single generator or transmission line can affect the flow of the entire ERCOT system. These are the problems real utilities deal with every day when discovering how their new generation mix affects the grid and how generators, transmission lines, and distribution lines must be built to compensate for added load.