Monitoring for post-contingency System Operating Limit exceedance in the Western Interconnection

The Western Electricity Coordination Council's Reliability Coordinator (WECC RC) function monitors a very large area of the Western United States in addition to Alberta and British Columbia, Canada; and North Baja California, Mexico. Monitoring a large area such as the Western Interconnection requires that processes and tools provide methods to facilitate the interpretation of real-time data and application results. This paper discusses the use of real-time contingency analysis at the WECC RC and some of the tools the RCs use to intelligently sort out the important, actionable information. Additionally this paper discusses the WECC RC's monitoring methodology and procedures and how they shape the RC's actions when dealing with post-contingency System Operating Limit (SOL) exceedances. Finally, Interconnection Reliability Operating Limits (IROL) are discussed in the context of real-time awareness of IROLs and detection of potential IROL conditions.