Priority Initiatives While each of the initiatives summarized below is important to WECC’s role in assuring the near- and long-term reliability of the Western Interconnection and is expected to be completed in the timeframe indicated, there are a few that will be particularly critical and are considered priority initiatives: Scope and launch a comprehensive study of natural gas infrastructure, including natural gas storage capacity and other critical facilities that support the electric power sector Assess reliability implications of the State Implementation Plans to comply with Clean Power Plan, upon approval of final Rule Enhance WECC’s capability to assess Essential Reliability Services in future scenarios Create a comprehensive risk assessment of the Western Interconnection Assess Interconnection performance regarding key operational practices and work with our stakeholder committees to improve those practices Conclusion The 2017-2020 Operating Plan will be used as input by WECC Management and WECC Committee leadership in the development of 2018-2020 Work Plans at the Program Area and Committee level, respectively. The three-year Work Plans will contain the detailed milestones to accomplish the activities identified in the Operating Plan. Additionally, the Operating Plan will be used as an input to the 2018 Business Plan and Budgeting process to ensure adequate resources exist to complete outlined work.
Draft 2017-2020 Operating Plan Strategic Priority Initiative Activity Linkage to NERC Goal # Deliverable 2017 2018 2019 2020 Reliability Impacts of Changing Market Structure (e.g., EIM expansion; multiple ISO/RTOs) * Monitor evolution of market structures and assess any reliability implications * Monitor status of Regional System Operator efforts; identify and assess any reliability concerns as proposals proceed 4 Updates and possible assessment as discussions continue X X X X * Monitor status of the Mountain West Transmission Group; identify and assess any reliability concerns as proposals proceed 4 Updates and possible assessment as discussions continue X X X X * Monitor the expansion of the EIM and periodically assess any unintended consequences potentially affecting reliability 4 Updates and possible assessment as discussions continue X X X X Reliability Impacts of Evolving Resource and Load Composition * Assess natural gas infrastructure adequacy for the electric system * Scope and launch a comprehensive study of the natural gas (NG) infrastructure, including NG storage capacity (potentially jointly with WIRAB, WEIL, DOE) 4 Reliability Assessment X X X * Participate and support NERC's single point of failure NG assessment 4 Special Assessment X
* Study impacts of major public policy initiatives resulting in changes to the electric system * Assess reliability implications of the State Implementation Plans to comply with Clean Power Plan, upon approval of final Rule 4 Special Assessment X X * Enhance WECC’s capability to assess Essential Reliability Services * Develop capability to measure frequency response for each base case 3,4 Report on frequency response trends X * Understand plausible futures in which potential reliability risks could arise * Create 10 and 20-Year future scenarios for the Western Interconnection 4 Production Cost Model for Year 10 timeframe Capital Expansion Model for Year 20 timeframe X * Accept study requests and create appropriate study cases using the 10 and future scenarios to understand the potential reliability impact to the BES 4 X X Identification and Mitigation of Key Vulnerabilities * Continue assessment of vulnerabilities and influence proactive measures with industry Produce and publish WECC's State of the Interconnection 3 Special Assessment X X X X * Create a comprehensive risk assessment of the Western Interconnection 3 Interconnection-wide Risk Report X X X X
* Reduce Misoperations rate * Analyze Protection Systems misoperations and equipment failures and develop performance improvement plans 3 Report and recommendations X X * Improve understanding of unknown outages * Outreach to industry on improving "unknown outage" rate 3 Outreach and improvement plan X * Enhance tools and analysis to assess vulnerabilities 3 Report X * Identify opportunities to reduce human performance-related outages * Analyze outages and events containing a Human Performance Cause Code and develop improvement plans 3 Guidelines or recommendations X X * Improve awareness of physical and cyber security best practices * Host a Western Interconnection Security conference 3 Conference X X Appropriate Sharing of Operating, System, and Events Analysis Information * Assess Interconnection performance regarding key operational practices * Develop a replacement methodology for the Operational Practices Survey 3 Assessment of the state of key operational practices in the interconnection X X * Develop an outreach and education plan to improve Next-Day Study performance 3 Guidelines or recommendations X X
* Lead the shift toward a proactive mindset within operating entities through development of an education and outreach plan * Work to develop an outreach and education plan to increase utilization of RTCA by TOPs 3 Guidelines or recommendations X * Develop an Interconnection-wide short circuit database * Scope and launch a project to determine the format and mechanism for sharing short circuit data 3 Database X X X * Improve communication of Lesson Learned from events * Initiate quarterly lessons learned or best practices webinars 3 Webinars X X X X Analysis of future scenarios which could challenge BES reliability, including high impact/low frequency events * Use the Energy-Water Climate Change Scenario to understand the impacts on the BES of anticipated changes in the environment in the 20-year planning horizon 4 20-Year Study Case Report X X * Identify key HILF Scenarios and select one for study * Study a scenario of a prolonged drought in the northwest which would severely limit hydro resources 4 Report X X