Power System Generation Load Balance

A fundamental responsibility of power system operators is to balance load and generation in real-time, where load represents the summation of system native load and the scheduled exchanges to other utilities. To balance load and generation in real-time, a power system operator needs to ensure that the automatic generation control (AGC) system that regulates a number of generating units to match generation to load is working within the North American Reliability Council's (NERC) established reliability standards. The objective of AGC is to balance generation and load on a minute-to-minute basis when operators do not have sufficient time to control generators. AGC system consists of two technology elements: (i) AGC application; and (ii) AGC infrastructure.