Solution

Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) is one of the transmission owners participating in California ISO’s generator interconnection procedure, which means the utility is required to perform various system impact studies and facilities studies for multiple interconnection requests.

Since 2011, 1898 & Co. professionals have been serving in a staff augmentation role for PG&E’s transmission planning group, assisting with activities in the generator interconnection process for these requests. Currently, we are providing engineering and technical services for the generation interconnection process, as well as conducting interconnection studies including power flow analysis, transient stability analysis and bus flow analysis for phase I and II of the annual cluster-based interconnection studies.

During these phases, we participate in scope discussions between California ISO, PG&E and the private generation customer. This helps us fully understand the scope of the project, allowing us to confirm necessary assumptions and other requirements for the study. The team then runs the various analyses, focusing on defining the adverse impacts to the system first. From there, we discuss mitigation options and test them with further analysis.

Additional support includes working with PG&E’s transmission planning group and coordinating technical reviews and facilities studies among substation engineering, transmission line engineering, system protection and transmission operations groups within PG&E.

Heading Toward More Renewables

As the studies are completed and interconnections performed, PG&E will move closer to the required renewable generation levels set by the state of California. Through these studies, the organization can be sure that its systems remain stable and reliable for customers across its service area.