Renewable energy generation and reliability in the Western Interconnection

Julio Contreras (he/him)
Hometown: Mission, TX
Major: Civil and Environmental Engineering ‘24
Internship: Western Electricity Coordinating Council 

Julio Contreras reflects on his Lane Center internship with the Western Electricity Coordinating Council

As the designated regional entity for the Western Interconnection, the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) partners with generators, utilities, and balancing authorities to ensure energy reliability in the West while simultaneously enforcing the standards from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC). WECC's unique role as both partner and enforcer allows it to serve as a guiding compass for stakeholders venturing into uncharted territory in a rapidly changing energy landscape. This requires not only careful compliance monitoring, but also a dedicated team of analysts and engineers who are constantly sifting through data looking for patterns that point to potential issues. This summer my partner Luke and I joined this team of analysts to help WECC understand how changing climate affects wind and solar generation and the impact it has on the Western Interconnection. 

Due to the interdisciplinary nature of our project, Luke and I had the opportunity to collaborate with industry experts across different organizations in the climate and energy space. We developed a close relationship with our mentor Tim Reynolds, who helped us understand WECC's role and provided helpful feedback and access to several datasets that were invaluable to our analysis. Thanks to his guidance, Luke and I refined the scope of our research and better understood what WECC hoped to gain from our summer project. Outside of WECC, Luke and I also collaborated with Daniel Baker and Greg Park, who work in operations at the Southwest and Northwest Power Pools respectively. Their advice was instrumental to our statistical analysis and gave us a more comprehensive understanding of the role that different entities play in the Western Interconnection. 

The bulk of my summer was spent researching the relationship between specific weather variables and wind and solar generation. Because WECC doesn't collect much weather data, Luke and I spent the first few weeks of the internship collecting weather data from sources like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and cleaning it in order to perform statistical analysis. Our goal was to build a statistical tool that would help relevant stakeholders determine the probability of variable power underperforming and affecting reliability. However, due to the complexity of the project, we ultimately pivoted to exploring whether statistical forecasting methods like multivariate regression could be used to predict dips in interconnection performance and incidences of Energy Emergency Alerts (EEAs) or Loss of Load Events (LOLL). 

Through Luke's and my project, I realized that differing methods of data collection have a significant impact on WECC's internal studies. Many variable power metrics are collected at the Balancing Authority (BA) level while weather variables are collected in faraway weather stations that can result in loss of accuracy–especially because wind and solar farms are often built in places with unique microclimates. As renewable energy sources take over the energy mix, it will become more important for organizations like WECC to place a larger emphasis on meteorology and collect additional data that was not needed when the West primarily relied on fossil fuels. 

As my time at WECC comes to a close, I am grateful to have had the opportunity to work with Tim Reynolds, Luke Veit, Daniel Baker, Greg Park, and many others who enriched my experience and taught me so much about the Western Interconnection. I look forward to applying all the knowledge and skills I developed this summer to work towards realizing a future where everyone has access to reliable and clean, affordable energy!