Substation buses
Substation buses act as potential connection points within a substation.
When assessing different buses in a substation:
- Check the voltage level for each bus and;
- Only evaluate the ones within your target voltage range for interconnection
Once you select the buses based on your desired voltage, dig into the capacity details and limitations for any buses within your target voltage range.
While good practice is to connect new projects at buses with the most capacity, connections at a specific bus may be limited by physical factors such as which way the substation can practically be expanded to accommodate the new connection.
For a conservative approach and to prevent unforeseen limitations, it is best to evaluate projects based on the most restrictive bus capacity within the target voltage range, rather than the best.
Example use case
A solar plant looking to connect at a 230 kV substation in Georgia should evaluate capacity at all 230 kV buses within that substation. If one 230kV bus shows 70 MW of capacity and another 230kV bus at the substation shows 100 MW of capacity, it may be better to take the more conservative assumption that you may only be able to get the 70 MW interconnection.