Challenges to the application software in the new RTO paradigm

Summary form only given. The main purpose of this paper is to examine the major relevant requirements that will be imposed by the formation of "giant" regional transmission organizations (RTOs) on the application software, i.e., analytical algorithms that are used in operations. Both traditional energy management systems (EMS) applications such as network topology processing, state estimation, dispatch power flow, contingency and switching analysis, and nontraditional applications such as optimization algorithms for energy and transmission rights auctions will have go through a new metamorphosis to meet the stringent conditions of operating the RTOs.