Grid Mod at midpoint: Great progress, great promise

The Bonneville Power Administration recently reached the midway point of its 5-year Grid Modernization Key Strategic Initiative to update robust systems and protocols for managing the power system, transmission grid and other BPA assets. The grid modernization program now forges ahead to modernize equipment and processes, to prepare BPA for potential participation in established and emerging markets in the West and secure Bonneville’s future as the provider of choice for its power customers.

To date, 10 grid modernization projects have been completed and are delivering business value. Another 21 are executing planned work in the deliver phase. Two are in the integration phase, which is the final phase of scoping and planning, but these are on hold as staff focus on EIM readiness. That means almost 90% of the projects are completed or in flight, which is on track with the initial portfolio schedule. 

“I am pleased with our progress and the accomplishments we’ve made,” said Grid Modernization Director Allie Mace. “Along with my staff and the project teams, I am committed to building on this momentum to realize the multiple benefits of these collective projects to our customers.”

The 10 projects completed to date include the One BPA Outage project. This initiative is helping BPA reduce the number of outages necessary to complete critical work on the transmission grid, save money and reduce the number of outages canceled due to last minute issues. Over the last year, the project has proved its value as COVID-19 restrictions and wildfires forced BPA to rearrange outages. The new process allowed staff to keep work moving forward while ensuring the safety of crews. Several other projects strengthen BPA’s mission critical information technology, or MCIT, such as developing an architecture to guide all future critical IT work.  Completion of the MCIT Integration project is simplifying and standardizing the provisioning and support of application integrations. These projects reduce complexities and enable quicker, more strategic decision-making based on what makes the most business sense. 

Other completed projects lay the foundation for Western Energy Imbalance Market settlements, should BPA decide to participate in the EIM. All of the completed projects are a precursor to greater transmission and power system visibility and enhanced revenue opportunities. One great example is the Energy Trading and Risk Management project. The project streamlined processes, reduced manual activities through task automation, offers flexible reporting options which comply with BPA and California Independent System Operator contract requirements, and created the capability to capture within-hour power trades at sub-hourly intervals down to five-minute granularity.  

“The project exemplified cross-agency collaboration and has provided increased visibility into our trading portfolio through flexible reporting and improved functionality in areas such as market-to-market valuations and synchronization with hourly and sub-hourly CAISO transactions,” said Suzanne Cooper, vice president of Power Services Bulk Marketing. “Systems we are putting in place now, combined with further leveraging the project’s capabilities, will help us to take advantage of future market opportunities, such as the EIM.”

With the critical work detailed above in the rear-view mirror, BPA now turns its attention to other EIM-related projects and a host of transmission-focused projects that will enhance system visibility and reliability. 

Many of the grid modernization projects directly improve transmission access, visibility and reliability, and several help BPA prepare for potential EIM participation. Three in particular, Remedial Action Scheme Automatic Arming, Short-Term Available Transfer Capability and Automated Operations Planning and Reliability Assessment, will improve reliability and enhance the BPA transmission customer experience. 

“Modernizing our equipment, processes and technology will be a major benefit to BPA customers,” said Michelle Cathcart, vice president of Transmission System Operations. “The enhanced visibility and analytical capability that comes from these projects will allow us to operate the system more efficiently and more reliably.”

“The transmission projects combined with metering improvements being instituted as part of grid modernization create revenue opportunities that will help keep transmission and power rates low,” said Tina Ko, vice president of Transmission Marketing and Sales.

In the second half of the grid modernization initiative, BPA will complete the remaining projects, including the Agency Enterprise Portal. Over the past decade, a growing number of customer data, tools and documents have become available. This project will allow BPA to streamline and automate these processes and make it easier to do business with BPA. 

“The Agency Enterprise Portal transformation is a priority and critical to achieving Transmission’s strategic objectives,” said Tina Ko, BPA Transmission Marketing and Sales Vice President. “Providing customers access to additional data and models, supporting and automating customer-specific workflows, and enabling customers to initiate different types of transactions are key to meeting our customers’ needs efficiently and responsively.”

Grid modernization projects support the implementation of BPA’s strategic goals to modernize federal power and transmission system operations and supporting technology, and to provide competitive power and transmission products and services. To learn more about the portfolio of projects or to see all that’s happening with grid modernization, click here.