The transition to the full commercial operation of the energy reserves market is on track to its late September target, according to the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP).
Karla Rica, IEMOP Knowledge Management Services assistant manager, said the so-called trial operations program (TOP) is in full swing and will run until 25 September this year.
“This program is a crucial step in ensuring the successful transition to commercial operations. We are operations. We are working and completing essential prerequisites which include the price determination methodology (PDM) approval and ensuring the readiness of our systems and processes and the conduct of comprehensive software certification audit,” Rica said.
According to Rica, the PDM has completed public hearings requisite conducted by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) but lacks its approval as there may be a need for software changes.
The IEMOP said the software certification audit will be done by an independent auditor through the Philippine Electricity Market Corp. which is scheduled for completion by October this year.
The trial operations of the reserves market started earlier this month, with the Department of Energy pointing out the trial operations will be non-binding and serve only to test systems for such tasks registration, scheduling, dispatch and pricing, metering, cost recovery and settlement.
Included in the exercises are interface tests of the IEMOP with the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) and the ancillary services (AS) providers.
The DOE clarified the results of the trial operations will not be used as commercial basis for scheduling, dispatch, settlement and cost recovery of the participants.
The ancillary servers or AS provide the generating capacity to be dispatched to meet contingent reserve needs when a power generating unit trips or a transmission interconnection problem occurs.
The NGCP had said the AS are necessary in managing power fluctuations to ensure the quality and reliability of power flowing through its system. If improperly managed, power fluctuations can damage sensitive equipment, lead to automatic load drops and pose a danger to the transmission system as a whole if severe.
