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DISTRIBUTED GENERATION, BENEFICIAL OR DETRIMENTAL TO GRIDSECURITY, FROM THE SOUTH AFRICAN SYSTEM OPERATORSPERSPECTIVE
Written and published for 5
th
South African Cigre Regional Conference 2005 by J H Muller,National Control, System Operator, Eskom Holdings, P O Box 103, Germiston, 1400, South Africa
1. SUMMARY
The South African System Operator, which forms part of Eskom Transmission Division, is responsible for the management of the South African Interconnected Power System. This power system currently consist of more than 27300 km of transmission lines, not taking into account the underlying distribution system and 20PowerStation’s with the generating capacity of +-36000 MW. The role of the System Operator is to ensurecontinues quality supply of power to a range of customers, through managing the system in aneconomically, reliable, stabile and secure manner.Due to unpreceded load growth and a shift in focus to environmental issues in South Africa and thesurrounding regions, as well as the long distances power needs to be transported, the currentInterconnected Power System is becoming severely strained. This situation makes the effectivemanagement and operating thereof a complicated and difficult task. This is worsened by the fact that someterminal equipment is coming to the end of its effective life span and would need replacement or upgradingwithin the near future.Well planned, well placed Distributed Generation, connected to the Grid near load centres, forming part of an Energy Market, will make it possible to not only relief the ageing power system, but also offer effectivesolutions to current constraints on the South African Interconnected Power System.The System Operator due to its world class experience and skills in effectively managing one of the biggestinterconnections in the world, has an important role to play in co-ordinating the development,implementation and operation of this South African Interconnected Power System, so that it supports thesuccessful introduction of these new forms of generation.
2. DEFINITION FOR DISTRIBUTED GENERATION
For the purpose of this paper and in part based on the Cigre Definition, Distributed Generation can be seenas generation from 10 to 100 MW. This can be an individual generator or modules with a combined power output of 10 MW and more, installed at or near the load centres, connected to the transmission or distribution grid and could be synchronised with the system at a frequency of 50 HZ.This does not include any Demand Side Management load reduction agreements or contracts. Theresponsibility of the System Operator is to ensure continuity of supply to its customers. Demand SideManagement agreements result in un-served energy, which lead to the sum of the loss of income from notdelivering the supply and the payment to customers for reducing their load in times of high load, which of course affects the price of electricity to the consumer. This paper will focus on Distributed Generation andnot Distributed Resources, which includes Demand Side Management.
3. SOUTH AFRICAN INTERCONNECTED POWER SYSTEMPower System Profile
The South African Interconnected Power System is a combination of generation, transmission, distributionand rural electrical networks. The majority of the present generation capacity is concentrated in theMpumalanga area due to high deposits of coal. This generation hub is situated to the north east of wheremost of the load is situated known as the Central region. Additionally power is transferred over longdistances southwards to supply the Eastern, Southern and Western regions, which makes up approximatelya third of the total system demand. Figure 1 indicates the load centres on the Interconnected Power Systemand relevant transmission corridors between them.
 
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 Taking the maximum demand of the South African IPS as 34210 MW (measured 13/07/2004), this meansthat +- 11000 MW needs to be transferred south to supply this remote load. Transferring this power over distances of up to 1500 km on 275, 400 and 765 kV transmission lines results in losses equal to and higher than a 615 MW generator, depending on the generation profile on the Power System at the time. This isclose to 2% of the total demand on the Power System.Although some generation units are situated in the Eastern and Western regions, it is not enough to satisfythe required demand in these distant areas, and power needs to be transported in from Mpumalangageneration hub. Whenever there is a change in the generation that is situated in these distant regions or some of the interconnections are on outage or lost, it severely impacts on the ability of the transmissionnetwork to transport power due to stability constraint conditions that exist. This decrease in generation or the loss of an interconnection will increase the transfer in power on the remaining lines, which in turn willincrease the need for reactive power, which may cause voltage instability. Voltage instability may then bethe cause of a voltage slide or collapse of the relevant network. Voltage collapse takes place over a periodof time, ranging from a few minutes to a couple of hours, and can give clear warning signals. The SystemOperator may have a limited amount of time to implement corrective actions, such as starting generation,returning the interconnection back to service, or reducing load in the effected areas to relieve transfers ontransmission lines.A further problem when additional generation is lost in these remote regions is angle instability.Angle instability will move the effective network into an unstable condition. This unstable condition could beaggravated by any disturbance, which may result in the separation of the region from the InterconnectedPower System. Normally such an incident will take place within a few seconds, with little or no warning,giving the System Operator, no or very little time for corrective actions. So the current practice is toimplement preventive measures before the system moves into a angle unstable condition, through the useof generation, load reduction or load shedding, which will ensure the system operates within previouslyestablished stability margins.Currently there is a very limited amount of Distributed Generation connected to the Interconnected Power System. These are mostly neighbouring countries, municipalities and big consumers. Some of theDistributed Generation that is operated in parallel with the IPS is found at Cape Town City Council, TswaneCity Council, Sasol Chemical Industries, Transkei, Lesotho and Mozambique. These range from standbyunits, self-supply, peaking, co-generation (steam) and grid supply. Types of generation currently in userange from diesel, gas, coal and hydro, with an almost insignificant amount of wind and solar.Another important factor is the current economic growth in South Africa and neighbouring regions. This canalmost be directly linked to the growth in electrical demand, and it has definitely contributed to reducing theexcess generating reserve and is constraining the transfer capability of the South Africa InterconnectedPower System drastically. It is predicted that Eskom may run out of capacity by 2007, but it may be moreprobable that Eskom will be unable to meet peak demand in 2006. Presuming that it takes between 10 to 15years to build a new base load power station, it seems very unlikely that a new station will be build withinthe near future, and it may be a viable option to start looking at alternative solutions. It needs to bementioned that some of the mothballed power stations will be returned to service during the next 2 to 3
 
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years. But at that time the returned generation will simply help reduce the shortage that may exist at thattime.
4. DRIVERS FROM ELECTRICAL GRID FOR DISTRIBUTED GENERATION IN SOUTHAFRICA
As can be deducted from above the South African Interconnected Power System needs to be strengthenedand additional generating capacity will be needed within the 1 to 2 years, to ensure a reliable and secureelectrical supply to facilitate further economic development. Without taking the Governments stand onrenewable energy or world drive for alternative and clean energies into consideration, and just looking at thecurrent and future challenges that Eskom will be facing. It is almost without doubt that DistributedGeneration could become an important and viable solution to current and future challenges facing the SouthAfrican power industry.Distributed Generation can have many faces and work with a wide range of prime movers, such as gas,fuel-oil, nuclear, wind, hydro, tidal wave, ocean currents and heat from the sun. When looking at thegeographic’s of South Africa it becomes clear that we have an abundance of renewable energies in theregions where we actually experience transmission and generation constraints. If this potential could befurther developed it may not only defer the strengthening of the transmission system but also the building of new power stations.As can be seen from figure 2, the South African wind map there is prevalent wind conditions in the Eastern,Southern and Western regions of South Africa. If this proved technology could be further developed in thisregions in large enough combinations of 50 to 100 MW, it will not only help reduce transfers on the
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