UK extends technical grant to ERC
Friday, March 24, 2006
By MYRNA M. VELASCO
The government of the United Kingdom has granted a technical assistance to the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) intended for strengthening of the market monitoring systems and procedures of the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market.
The assistance program lumped under the "Capacity Building Assistance for the ERC" was channelled through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s Global Opportunities Fund for Economic Governance.
In acknowledging the grant program, ERC chairman Rodolfo B. Albano noted that "the Philippine electricity industry is fortunate to be provided with insights and experiences of experts from the UK and other countries worldwide."
It was emphasized that the major goal would be to enhance the technical capability of the Spot Market Division (SMD); in the process of regulating the operations of the electricity spot market.
This has to be done by way of setting up the ERC’s own market monitoring system and procedures; complemented with the conduct of extensive training and workshop.
To implement the propounded capacity enhancement training under the TA, the ERC shall engage the services of EA Technology as consultant, given its extensive experience in the deregulation of wholesale electricity markets.
Specifically, engaged as technical advisors for the TA, which kicked February 26 this year, are Andrew Jackson and John Bennet.
Jackson worked for the UK electricity regulator, the Victorian Power Exchange and a range of senior consulting roles including the development of regulatory policies with respect to the England and Wales Pool, among others, the ERC said.
On the other hand, Bennet was renowned for having a strong utility industry background within the retail sector and in a variety of senior consulting roles in the UK and continental Europe.
A key part of the program would involve series of market monitoring discussions as well as experiences of other electricity markets in the evolution and implementation of market monitoring processes around the world.
The initial phase of the TA sets the installation and an initial walkthrough on the NEO software, which will serve as the core monitoring analysis tool for the ERC.
The NEO is a powerful data analysis and visualization tool, which was developed by Intelligent Energy Systems (IES) specifically to handle complex data from multiple sources in real time.
posted by philpower @ 10:17 AM,
