Unscheduled Flow in Deregulated Electricity Markets: Bridging the Gap between the Western Electric Power Industry and Academia

Unscheduled power flows cause inequitable compensation of transmission infrastructure usage as well as a less reliable system. Accordingly, an unspecified amount of dollars in the United States are lost annually to unscheduled flows. A comprehensive survey of the literature on methods used to handle unscheduled flow in the market and the system is provided in this paper. Advantages and disadvantages are discussed with specific regard to the system and operating considerations within the Western Interconnection of the United States bulk electric system. Operating challenges within the Western Interconnection are briefly introduced. An action plan for including any of the proposed unscheduled flow mitigation mechanisms within the Western Interconnection is recommended, which includes guidance from a regulatory agency, infrastructure enhancements, and modeling efforts to determine associated impacts of the most promising methods prior to implementation.