Harnessing Flexible Transmission: Corrective Transmission Switching for ISO-NE

Despite the significant attention transmission switching (TS) has gained over the last decade, important challenges remain. This paper addresses the state-of-the-art challenges of TS by studying the benefits of corrective switching using authentic Independent System Operator of New England (ISO-NE) data and software. Thus, the results and analyses presented in this paper are more convincing than any other study conducted to date. TS is successfully implemented for reliability applications as a corrective mechanism. ISO-NE maintains N -1 reliability based on the preventive dispatch and enforcing proxy reserve requirements along with N - 1 - 1 reliability based on reserves and interface limits. This paper incorporates TS as a corrective mechanism in response to both the N - 1 and N - 1 - 1 events. Not only does this paper investigate the capability of corrective switching to alleviate thermal overloads but also the economic benefits of corrective switching with actual market data and in-house market software at ISO-NE. The results show that corrective TS can improve the reliability of the system and save millions of dollars each year by providing a cheaper corrective action alternative for ISO-NE. The results also suggest that TS would provide more significant benefits for systems with more transmission congestion such as Pennsylvania New Jersey Maryland, Midcontinent Independent System Operator, and Electric Reliability Council of Texas.