Why should power systems

be interconnected?
Reliable
Low cost
Better regulation: a load change can be taken care of by all the units in the
interconnection and even the losses in the generating unit can be made up by
spinning reserve among units in the interconnection
An interconnected system will require smaller generation capacity reserve
when interconnected than isolated.
A system can buy or sell power which make the transaction profitable.

 The above process is not done when the net savings is very less
For a more efficient economic operation the incremental cost needs
to be the same for that the following steps are carried out.
Assume that there is no interchange and run an economic
dispatch for its own system.
For the system with the lower incremental cost increase the
demand stepwise and calculate the new incremental cost each
time.
For the system with a higher incremental cost calculate the
incremental cost for every reduced demand.
Find the load share between both systems for which the
incremental cost is the same. This will be the final load share for
the most economic operation.

Here we can see that for economic operation the

Incremental cost should be between 250MW and
300MW. To be more accurate the above procedure
could be repeated with smaller steps between
250MW and 300MW.

Other types of interchange

The main reason for interchange is for economic operation. But there
are other minor reasons as well
Capacity interchange: The capacity of a generating unit is such that it
supplies the peak load as well as reserves for unit outages. If this
criteria is not met then the system may enter into a capacity
agreement with the neighboring system that generates surplus energy
than it needs.
Diversity interchange: This happens when two systems are in different
time zones may be of one hour behind or even seasons. Here the
systems attain their peak loads at different times with respect to one
system. The system that peaked first would buy it from the other
system and sell when the other system has a peak load when this
system doesnot.

 Energy banking: this happens mostly when a hydro system is

interconnected with thermal system. During high run off the
hydro system will have more energy and becomes the
depositor that could sell energy to the thermal system. During
low run off the hydro system becomes the banker and buys
energy form the thermal system.
Emergency power interchange: when there are generator
failures and the load needs to be supplied continuously
interconnection of systems become very useful. The failures
may occur at times that are not convenient or economical so
the pricing for emergency power exchange is usually high.
Inadvertent power exchange among utilities that is either not
previously agreed upon or in an amount different from the
amount agreed upon. This could be due to shortages of fuel,
water etc. the price levels reflect the cost for generating the
exchanged energy.

THANK YOU