Advanced dynamic thermal rating system using numerical weather prediction

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Society's demand for electricity continues to grow, yet environmental, regulatory and economic constraints often preclude the construction of new power plants and transmission lines. The challenge now faced by engineers, equipment manufacturers, and regulatory agencies is to find ways to maximize the capacity of existing power lines, derived from the maximum allowable flow of power. The most important factor limiting this flow is thermal, as overloading of thermally limited circuits can result in physical failures. It is typically based on conservative weather assumptions to ensure that safety and reliability requirements are met. As a result, transmission lines are generally underutilized. At the same time, the risk of circuit failure is not completely eliminated, because the assumptions, while conservative, do not represent a true worst-case scenario. This project will develop a system for dynamic rating of transmission lines based on mesoscale Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models, that have recently become commonly available and that can be run with relatively modest computing resources. These models can provide much more detailed information than any observation or measurement network. Rating systems using outputs of such models will provide relevant meteorological parameters with a spatial resolution comparable to the spans of overhead lines themselves. Besides better utilization of existing transmission lines, the proposed system will provide a number of other