Webinar: Short-Term Congestion Mitigation with Transmission Topology Optimization at Alliant Energy

Featured Speakers: Mitchell Myhre, Senior Manager of Business Planning and Regulatory Strategy, Alliant Energy; Abubaker Elteriefi, Manager of Operational Planning, ITC; Pablo A. Ruiz, Co-founder and CEO of NewGrid, Senior Consultant at The Brattle Group, Associate Research Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Boston University

Webinar Abstract: Effective management of transmission system limitations has become critical to support the ongoing energy transition as well as economic development. Increased penetration of variable energy resources typically located away from demand centers, electrification of traditionally fossil energy uses, and new demand developments, including datacenters, all require additional transmission capability. The resulting transmission congestion conditions in operations can be acute today in many regions, costing transmission customers over $20 billion in the US in 2022, in addition to affecting grid reliability and resilience. To cost-effectively manage these operational transmission needs will require improved congestion management practices and technologies to better utilize the existing grid, even as new transmission facilities are planned and constructed.

Transmission topology optimization identifies grid reconfiguration options to re-route power flow around bottlenecks, increasing transfer capability across congested areas. These reconfiguration solutions reduce the need to perform market redispatch to manage congestion, providing operational, efficiency, reliability, and resilience benefits.

In collaboration with NewGrid and ITC, Alliant Energy has been able to advance regionally beneficial and reliable reconfiguration opportunities to mitigate major congestion bottlenecks in the area, in the operations planning timeframe. Working with the Midcontinent ISO, ITC and other Transmission Operators in the region to evaluate and leverage these opportunities, Alliant IPL has saved close to 50% of its net congestion costs in the last three years, in addition to avoiding curtailments of renewable resources. This webinar will review the Alliant Energy and ITC experience with the use of topology optimization, including case studies, key findings and recommendations.

About the Speakers:
Mitchell Myhre is a Senior Manager of Business Planning and Regulatory Strategy at Alliant Energy focusing on system planning, resource development and energy policy.  At Alliant Energy he leads a team working to help transform the company’s generation fleet and find ways to better utilize and optimize the use of the transmission system.  Mitchell is involved with many facets of transmission planning and RTO processes including generation interconnection and retirement, local and regional planning, and congestion management.  Mitchell holds a Master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin–Madison related to Energy Analysis and Policy.

Abubaker Elteriefi is a seasoned Power Systems Engineer with over twenty-five years of experience in transmission system planning, design, and operations. As the Manager of Operational Planning at ITC, his responsibilities include overseeing operational assessments, identifying potential System Operating Limit (SOL) exceedances, and developing mitigation plans to ensure system reliability and efficiency. He also serves as a subject matter expert for multiple North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) reliability standards. Mr. Elteriefi holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Iowa State University and is a registered Professional Engineer in the branch of Electrical Engineering. He is a NERC certified system operator at the reliability coordinator level, and an active member of the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) Operating Reliability Working Group.

Pablo A. Ruiz is Co-founder and CEO of NewGrid, a grid optimization company, where he leads the teams that develop topology optimization software technology and provide congestion monitoring and mitigation services to utilities and market participants. He is also a senior consultant at The Brattle Group and Associate Research Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Boston University. He was the Principal Investigator for the U.S. DOE ARPA-E Transmission Topology Control Algorithms project, which led to the formation of NewGrid. Pablo holds a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Moderator: Erik Ela, Director of System Operation and Electricity Markets, ESIG

Registration Cost: FREE

Q&A Session: We will be using the Slido platform for Q&A. Please submit your questions and follow-along during the event at this link.