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Multiple Power System Studies Occuring at the Same Time

Multiple Power System Studies Occuring at the Same Time

Multiple Power System Studies Occuring at the Same Time

(OP)
Hi all, I would like to obtain some opinions and comments on matters of conducting power system studies.

WE are working on a grass-root project wherein the overall primary transmission system (69 kV and above) are designed by an overall HV consulting firm and the downstream process areas are designed by multiple EPCs. Each will conduct their own power system studies (i.e. load flow, short circuit, etc.)to support and justify their respective designs. Our company are designing a portion of the process facility BUT IS CONSIDERED TO BE BUILT IN THE FUTURE YEARS AND IS STILL AT PRE-FEED STAGE with an estimated load of more or less 60 MVA at 13.8 kV.

The overall HV consulting firm in charge of all primary substations, co-gen interconnections and primary power lines are conducting overall system studies (where our process areas are just "lumped" in their ETAP model). These overall studies involves load flow, short circuit, harmonics, arc flash, protection coordination, load shedding and dynamic stability. Their scope extends on plant energization prior to our scope.

MY CONCERN IS THIS.
Our FUTURE electrical loads are large enough that it would impact the current power system operation at that time. The utility and COGEN are in parallel and the COGEN is tasked to load the plant only and to keep and maintain the contracted power from utility. There are HV Mvar Caps in the primary substation where the cogen and utility meet. It is not our scope to look into the overall power system and we do not have the expertise to do so and the HV consulting firm is currently finalizing their study reports in 12 months.

I am proposing to share our load flow report and software model (by the way, we asked their overall primary model and attached ours as lumped models) to them and then request them to provide us any concerns or red flags that might be worth planning and pre-investing now. I am just worried that as we proceed on making our assumptions and make our own scope work "LOCALLY", there might be overall concerns and dynamics that must be determined and addressed and the current HV consulting firm can help shed light.

However, I am being discouraged because of the fact that we are still in PRE-FEED stage and our project scope do not have funds to contract extra work to them or we are not contractually allowed to deal with them. As they will be completed in 12 months...this concerns me. I am not confident proceeding to the next stage of project wherein the HV engineering firm did not include our load flow report and model into their overall studies to verify system capacity and capability.

Any thoughts? I apologize for the rather long introduction?

RE: Multiple Power System Studies Occuring at the Same Time

"... I am being discouraged ..." suggests that decisions have already been made, well above your pay grade.

In a way, it smells like someone already has a plan that includes future emergency increase of your scope to include talking to the HV consulting firm about your project as an add-on, at extra cost to someone. Continued attempts by you to economize over the long term may interfere with that other party's plans.
It may well be a career decision for you.

... but that's just an ephemeral odor, and I may actually just be paranoid.


Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

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