Risk assessment methodology – Running tests at the Portuguese TSO

摘要

Since July 2010, after the development of the risk assessment methodology [1], [2], thePortuguese Transmission System Operator (TSO) has begun the implementation of a test pilotto evaluate the methodology in parallel with the deterministic security assessment. Thisparallel run of the new methodology has many advantages. It give the TSO the opportunity tocompare both risk and deterministic approaches, to improve the new methodology, to getoperators feedback and acceptance and to apply theoretical developments into practice.Nowadays is imperative that TSOs start to think out of the box and focus on an innovativemanner to cope with all these challenges. Anticipation, forecast, continuous monitoring tocloser to real-time analysis and flexibility are important keywords to operate the network insuch uncertain environment. Therefore, the use of methodologies that take advantage of theactual real-time conditions in combination with past knowledge, using good forecast anduncertainty prediction, and probabilistic methods, is extremely interesting in the systemoperation environment. Data must be a living source for this methodology. The quality of thecontinuous updated input data is crucial for the quality of the risk indices that are produce tosupport operators decision-making process. Since the development of the risk assessmentmethodology, the Portuguese TSO has been gathering major efforts to maintain the data alive,and this methodology alive. This data organisation has also opened new possibility both dataand methodology are being adapted and use by other business units in the Portuguese TSO,such as maintenance departments [3]. Risk indices composed of probability and severity percontingency will be displayed online to control room operators. Only relevant and strictlynecessary information must be shown to decrease the amount of data that the operator has toprocess and analyse. In this phase the comparison and evaluation of both methodologies isperformed.This paper will present the processes developed by the Portuguese TSO in order to perform aparallel run of the risk methodology and also some results acquired during this on-going pilotphase. In addition the corporate usage of risk methodology, evaluating mid-term investmentand maintenance costs, will be tackled.