April 3, 2018 | 9:16 pm
THE Department
of Energy (DoE) wants to draft by June a policy shifting the burden of payment
for buying reserve power to the power generator or transmission firm which
caused the deficiency, and away from consumers.
The so-called “causer
pays” policy, DoE Assistant Secretary Redentor E. Delola said, will increase
accountability among electric power industry participants for causing the
system to resort to reserve power, known by the term “ancillary services” in
the power industry.
“What we want to
implement is a fair and just policy that will protect (generation companies’)
welfare and, of course, the welfare of consumers,” he told participants at a
forum soliciting comment from industry.
Under existing
practices, consumers bear the cost of ancillary services even when the decline
in the power reserve was caused by a plant that went on an unscheduled outage
or when a transmission line tripped.
In February, Mr. Delola
said about P1.5 billion was shouldered by consumers, tucked into the
transmission charge in monthly electricity bills.
National Grid Corp. of
the Philippines (NGCP) is required to maintain certain levels of standby
reserve power to maintain the integrity of the transmission grid. It must have
“regulating” reserves equivalent to 4% of the demand at any given time to
address small variations during normal operations.
NGCP is also required
to maintain “contingency” reserve power, which is allocated to immediately
answer any reduction in supply when the largest power generating unit online —
the 647 megawatt (MW) coal-fired power plant in Sual, Pangasinan — fails to
deliver.
The operator also
maintains a dispatchable reserve — equivalent to the capacity of the second
biggest operating plant, the second 647-MW unit of the Sual plant — that is
readily available to replenish lost contingency reserve.
NGCP enters into power
supply contracts for these ancillary services, the cost of which is passed on
to consumers.
“What we want to do is,
consumers should not bear all the cost. The cost should be borne by the power
generator on a forced outage or the operator of the transmission lines that
tripped,” Mr. Delola said in an interview.
He said consumers
themselves add to the “variability” in power supply when loads suddenly rise
with the switching on of various types of cooling appliances. Some power plants
may not be able to immediately react to the power demand surge, thus the need
to call on other sources to regulate the electricity frequency, he said.
Mr. Delola said the DoE
team was given a June deadline for drafting the policy, although the department
was coordinating with the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) for the issuance
of the rules.
He said power
generation companies have suggested “additional improvements” to the proposed
mechanism, including an option that they themselves secure the supply contract
for ancillary services instead of NGCP.
The “causer pays”
mechanism will be a new burden for power generators, which have not factored in
the cost under their original business model, he said, noting that other
jurisdictions with a similar policy include Singapore, New Zealand and
Australia. — Victor V. Saulon
No comments:
Post a Comment