Using Dynamic Line Ratings for Wind Farm Gen-Tie Line Considerations

Presentation Description: Dynamic line rating (DLR) of overhead transmission lines is a technology shown to increase the available ampacity of a transmission line based on local weather observations or forecasts. Here, a case study for concurrent cooling effect of DLR of a gen-tie line for a new wind farm connection is shown. This proposed wind farm is located on the INL desert site, an area that has been well surveyed, and contains an array of NOAA maintained mesonet towers. The concurrent cooling effect allows for two benefits, one is that the size of the wind farm can be expanded beyond proposed maximum power output, this is due to the amapcity of the gen-tie line increasing from the increased wind speed. The second is that the size of a gen-tie line can be decreased if no expansion is sought. Due to the same concurrent cooling effects, a dynamically rated gen-tie line could be a smaller conductor than one that is statically rated. In addition, by pulling in forecasted weather data from the HRRR model, the analysis can be extended beyond real-time weather data to consider day ahead forecasts for both the wind farm power generation and the gen-tie line ampacity.