Alberta Electric System Operator announces new energy storage procurement opportunity
Source: Jessica Kennedy et al. · OSLER · | October 22, 2020
Source: Osler
On October 14, 2020, the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) announced plans for an upcoming Fast Frequency Response (FFR) Technology Pilot project [1]. The FFR Pilot is currently in its initial design phase and is expected to be implemented in 2021. The announcement presents a unique opportunity for energy storage assets in the province and comes as a welcome boost to energy storage proponents and related technology providers in Alberta, who currently face significant hurdles to develop projects.
This Update includes information about the opportunity, current challenges facing energy storage proponents and related considerations.
What is Fast Frequency Response?
FFR is a fast-acting transmission reliability service that ensures a sufficient amount of energy is injected to the grid to arrest frequency excursions, maintain frequency stability, and allow frequency recovery back to nominal following an imbalance between generation and load [2]. The AESO is particularly concerned with the impacts on the transmission system arising from potential temporary losses of imports from neighbouring grids interconnected to Alberta, which can arise (and has arisen) from outages on the British Columbia or Montana tie lines [3]. FFR is designed to prevent under frequency load shedding in the event of a significant drop in frequency – in other words, to prevent outages for electricity consumers [4].
The term “fast” is relative to each interconnected system [5]. To constitute FFR, the AESO requires a response from providers within 12 cycles (0.2 seconds) when a system frequency of 59.5 Hz is detected.
FFR service assets
The FFR Pilot procurement opportunity is targeted at any new technology that is capable of meeting the AESO’s technical FFR requirements. Proponents must demonstrate and validate technical capability. Examples of power assets that can provide FFR include:
Fast-responding energy storage, such as:
Fast-responding controls from batteries
Fast-responding controls from solar photo-voltaic cells
Synchronous machine inertial response
Traditional turbine-governor response
Wind turbine generator controls which extract additional power from the rotational energy [6].