SOME TOPICS ON THE DEREGULATION OF THE POWER INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES

This is a student report prepared for EE635, Economic Operation and Control of Interconnected Power Systems, for the Spring, 1992 semester at Purdue University. The assigned topic to the class was to discuss and describe some aspects of the deregulation of the United States power industry. The first chapter by Charles Thompson deals with the wheeling and transmission losses due to power exchange. This topic has been a main bottleneck for accountants and engineers in fully realizing advantages in a deregulated power environment. Perhaps the core of deregulation, the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA), is discussed and described by Patrick Lyons in Chapter 11. A description of the 1978 act, its amendments, and a commentary on the act is presented. The third and fourth chapters deal with demand side management (DMS). Chapter I11 by Ramanujam Ramabhadran focuses on the industrial sector and Chapter N by Kevin Karagory moves to the residential and commercial sectors. The last chapter deals with one small element of control of power flow in the transmission network. This is the use of high voltage DC systems for power flow control. The chapter describes HVDC systems in general and their control possibilities. Mr. Paul Ruby, the author of the chapter, is working in the solid-state area. For this reason, some special emphasis is made on devices in this chapter. Although this report is an incomplete sampling of topics on consequences of PURPA and deregulation, it is meant to be an introduction to the topic and a brief but representative sampling of topics in this complex area