Rules revision eyed on electricity spot market suspension

by Myrna Velasco November 23, 2015
http://www.mb.com.ph/rules-revision-eyed-on-electricity-spot-market-suspension/

Revisions in the rules on suspension of trading at the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) are being crafted, to include the function of system operator National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) on declaration of emergency events.

Effectively, this will be a modification on Rule 6 of the WESM Rules on Intervention and Market Suspension. The Philippine Electricity Market Corporation (PEMC) and NGCP have set out the proposed rules revisions for stakeholder comments.

Suspension of WESM’s operation is generally anchored on three major conditions as prescribed under the Philippine Grid Code (PGC). These are in cases of: Emergency; a threat to system security; and force majeure.

In the rules fortification, it has been propounded that the original provision must be corrected “since intervention is only allowed if the condition is in the extreme state.”

Technically, it was emphasized that when the condition is already at extreme state, “all automatic actions already failed and this would lead in system blackout.”

The issuance of ‘emergency instructions’ by system operator NGCP has also been proposed to be broadened – not just to PEMC as market operator but to all WESM members.

The rules also intend to clarify that the SO shall not be declaring “emergency,” but rather “issue red alert notice in case of emergency condition” as specified in the Grid Code.

It was further prescribed that the reporting of such incident shall be part of the Market Intervention Report to be submitted to the Energy Regulatory Commission, Department of Energy, Philippine Electricity Market (PEM) Board and the Grid Management Committee.

The rules shall also be sorted out to address “adverse material effect in the supply of electricity” as well as “market processes” due to occurrence of specified emergency conditions and system disturbances.

As stipulated, the proposed revision shall cover an emergency condition wherein “a power system disturbance due to an outage in the transmission network or generating system, for which market processes, are inadequate for recovery.”

Additionally, an emergency event shall constitute “significant environmental phenomenon, including weather, earthquake, floods, volcanic eruptions, tsunami, storms or fires which are likely to or are significantly affecting the power system operation in for which market processes are also inadequate for recovery.”