WESM asked to contract for capacity frequency control load to avoid blackouts
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
By MYRNA M. VELASCO
To avoid distressing scenario of system-wide blackouts, operators of power plants are asking the market operator of the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) to focus attention on contracting capacity for frequency control to stabilize powerplant operations.
A number of the country’s independent power producers (IPPs) bared that since WESM’s commercial operation in June this year, their power plants have been experiencing enormous frequency upsets and these have been straining efficient operation of their generating units.
"If PEMC (the Philippine Electricity Market Corporation) will not act on this dilemma soon, we will have blackouts because of equipment tear down," the power plant operators warned.
The load for frequency control forms part of the reserve that shall be set in place to avoid drastic frequency deviations encountered in the dispatch process.
Experts noted that blackouts can be caused by "substantial moves in system frequency."
Power plants are normally allowed to run at 60 Hertz, and the deviations can only come off at underfrequency of 57.6 H or go above 62.4 Hertz.
It was explained that drastic frequency excursions can happen in instances wherein the system loses a power plant, yet the demand may be too high and the system does not have enough plants for dispatch to meet it, so the other plants are instantaneously dispatched at maximum load.
In this scenario, frequency upset normally occurs and if this is not stabilized as required of any efficient power system, blackouts can happen in the whole grid.
Without setting such capacity in place, the frequency excursions in the power generating units because of required dispatch may cause disturbance, or at worst, serious damage in the generation equipment of power plants.
Prior to the commercial operations of the WESM in June, contracting for frequency control load was a responsibility of the National Transmission Corporation’s system operator.
This was however transferred to the WESM upon its market debut, but so far, this has not been attended to until now.
It appears now that aside from pricing concerns, the WESM has other critical concerns to address to ensure that an efficient deregulated market will work in the country.
posted by philpower @ 11:45 AM,
