In this Special Report, Tovuudorj Purevjav presents a description of the Mongolian electricity grids and their interconnections, a review of the present systems, technologies, and software for collection of grid data on the Mongolian electricity system, a description of existing methods for electricity demand forecasting in Mongolia, a summary of protocols for data exchange and data sharing currently in use in Mongolia, and plans for improvement of data gathering.
A summary of this report follows. A downloadable PDF file of the full report is here.
Tovuudorj Purevjav is Advisor, Green Energy International LLC.
This report was produced for the Regional Energy Security (RES) Project funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and presented at the RES Working Group Meeting, Tuushin Best Western Premier Hotel, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, December 9-11, 2019.
The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Nautilus Institute. Readers should note that Nautilus seeks a diversity of views and opinions on significant topics in order to identify common ground.
This report is published under a 4.0 International Creative Commons License the terms of which are found here.
Banner image: Schematic of the Mongolian grid system and its interconnections.
1.1 Brief Summary of Mongolian Electricity Grids
In Mongolia, electricity is almost entirely (82%) produced by a total of nine coal-fired power plants, with generation from renewable energy (13%) and from small diesel generating plants (5%, mostly in remote areas) providing the rest of the nation''s supplies. The total installed capacity of generation is currently (2019) 1476.6 MW consisting of the following generation sources: The total capacity of CHPs (combined heat and power plants) is 1162.2 MW
In 2019, the total electricity consumption of Mongolia has reached almost 9 TWh (terawatt-hours). 81% of which was supplied by domestic generation sources and 19% of which was provided by power imports.
The Mongolian power grid consists of five systems (Figure 1). Table 2 shows electricity consumption and transfers in 2019 for each of the five systems.
The CES supplies electricity to consumers in the central part of Mongolia, which covers more than 70% of the territory and 80% of the population of the country. The CES includes 6 coal-fired CHPs, 3 Wind power plants (PPs), and 5 Solar PP, and is connected to the Russian power grid by a double circuit 220 kV OHL (overhead line) to allow imports of electricity. The CES is also connected to the EES and AUES by 110 kV OHL, over which power is transferred to the CES from the other two systems.
The WES imports electricity from Russia via a 220 kV OHL. The Durgun Hydro Power plant, with a capacity of 12 MW, operates in parallel with the import line in this system and supplies electricity to the consumers in the three western provinces.
Operation of the AUES is based on the Taishir HPP with a capacity of 11 MW and diesel generators and imports of electricity from the CES in some areas. The AUES supplies power to consumers in the Govi-Altai and Zavkhan provinces. The EES operates based on a CHP plant with a capacity of 36 MW to supply electricity to consumers in Dornod and Sukhbaatar provinces and the Sukhbaatar branch of the EES is connected to the CES by a 110 kV OHL. The SES is connected to the CES by 110 kV and 220kV OHLs, and the Dalanzadgad CHP with a capacity of 9 MW is operated in parallel with these imports from the CES to provide electricity supplies for the SES.
The main load center in Mongolia is the central zone, which includes the City of Ulaanbaatar. The main transmission lines in the CES are 220 kV and span a total of 1,412 km between the Russian border and the following substations: Darkhan, Erdenet, Songino, CHP4 (in Ulaanbaatar), Ulaanbaatar, Baganuur, Choir, Mandalgovi, Tavantolgoi, and Oyutolgoi. The maximum voltage level of the existing system under current operation is 220 kV.
1.2 Brief Summary of Plans for Mongolian Grid Expansion/Reinforcement
The policy document sets six different strategic goals for the Mongolian energy sector:
To meet the goals of the government policies described above, the main grid expansion projects included in Table 3 are described in the policy document.
The Mongolian electrical system is currently characterized by a significant dependence on neighboring countries, especially from Russia in the North and West and China in the South. Due to the current development of mines in the South region of Mongolia, a load demand forecast with a very sharp growth has been also presented for the 220 kV substations of Tavantolgoi and Oyutolgoi. Power supply to these substations (Tavantolgoi and Oyutolgoi) will be most likely provided through new OHLs from Ulanbaatar to Mandalgovi and on the Mandalgovi-Tavantolgoi-Oyutolgoi route, and by new power plants planned for the South Region.
1.3 Summary of Possible Regional Interconnections
At present, the Mongolia transmission system is already planned to be reinforced to integrate renewable generation, meet rising demand, and improve system reliability. Specifically, a new overhead line from Ulaanbaatar to Mandalgovi, at 220 kV, has been commissioned, and the transmission line infrastructure can be upgraded up to 330 kV. This development will provide a backbone for the system connection between Russia and China.
The paper is organized as follows: section 2 describes broadly the current status of grid data collection systems in Mongolia and how these systems are adapted to fit the needs of the power system; section 3 describes how forecasting techniques and data are used in planning; section 4 describes the existing protocols in Mongolia for data collection systems, and general practices for data sharing among electricity sector partners; section 5 discusses further actions for the development of data gathering; and section 6 offers conclusions related to the topic of this paper.
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