Establishing Technoeconomic Value of Contribution of a Pumped-Storage Hydropower plant to Bulk Power System Stability

Like their conventional counterpart, modern adjustable-speed PSH plants are also capable of supporting the stability and reliability of the power grid, providing services like inertial- and primary frequency response, contingency reserves, voltage support, and also enabling integration of more wind and solar generation. However, a lack of insight into the cost-benefit tradeoff of power-system stability services that PSH plants provide can lead to undervaluation and low compensation for PSH owner-operators for the services they provide. Also, as PSH plants are typically capable of providing multiple services simultaneously, it is difficult to distinguish, prioritize, and quantify the specific value of services such as the inertial response, primary-frequency response, voltage support, etc., from one another. This paper uses power-system stability-based valuation metrics and attributes to first quantify the system stability and reliability value of PSH units to improve bulk-power system stability and demonstrates the use of market framework and incentives practiced by system operators in the U.S. to assess financial compensation appropriate for PSH plant's contributions to stability services.