At least 14 transmission lines and nine transformers have been listed as defining parameters in the ability of National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) to address congestion and bottlenecks in the country’s transmission system that trigger upward pressure in prices at the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM).

The system operator’s improvement in easing congestion hurdles in the Luzon grid, according to the Energy Regulatory Commission’s (ERC) directive, will be measured in the operations of the following lines: the 500-kilovolt San Jose Tayabas; 230-kV Binga-San Manuel; 230-kV Labrador-Hanjin; 230-kV Bauang-Labrador; 230-kV Mexico-Balintawak; 230-kV Pantabangan-Cabanatuan; 230-kV Hanjin-Olongapo; 230-kV San Jose-Araneta; 230-kV Mexico-Hermosa; 500-kV San Manuel-San Jose; 230-kV Balintawak-San Jose; 500-kV Dasmarinas-Tayabas; 230-kV Calauan- MakBan; and 230-kV Kalayaan-Calauan lines.

The power transformers include those in: San Jose; Dasmariñas, Labrador, San Manuel, Balintawak, Araneta, Dolores, Zapote and Tayabas.

In the third regulatory reset for NGCP’s tariff setting, the ERC specified that in the next two years, the transmission firm must come up with firm data on congestion-induced interruptions in the system and such will be factored into the performance incentive scheme (PIS) that shall determine reward or penalties to be factored in to the company’s performance-based regulation.

Given lingering congestion dilemmas in the transmission system, the ERC added three indicators that shall be included in the PIS of the grid operator. One is congestion availability (ConA) that measures severity of impact of system losses; second is congestion system interruption severity index (ConSISI) that measures impact of unplanned outages; and System Interruption Reporting (SIR) which shall define the average number of days before a planned supply interruption or outage of a grid component that is reported by NGCP via its website.

That will be on top of the other indicators already integrated in the company’s PIS in previous regulatory reset, such as system interruption index, frequency of tripping, system availability, frequency limit compliance and voltage limit compliance, among others, which have also been set per grid.

The ERC noted that it expects NGCP to provide historic data on its operating records for the new congestion measurements, covering the periods from September 1, 2010 to August 31, 2012 and this shall become the basis of the targets for performance improvements.

“This would allow the parameters of the new performance measure to be confirmed during the 2013 rate setting process and the measure to be introduced on 1 January 2013,” the regulator emphasized.

It added that “insufficient information is available to the ERC at this point to enable the parameters, which include targets, deadbands, collars and caps for the new congestion measures to be fully defined for inclusion in the PIS.”