ERC seeks views of power utilities on rules

The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) is urging distribution utilities (DUs) to comment on the guidelines in monitoring the technical standards for DUs.

"We need the participation of the industry in coming up with the guidelines on the monitoring of power quality and reliability standards for DUs," the ERC said.

The two draft guidelines have already undergone revisions to address technical issues raised in the consultations conducted with the industry participants. 

The Philippine Distribution Code (PDC) set power quality standards for electric DUs. 

Power quality refers to the quality of the voltage, including its frequency and the resulting current, which are measured in the distribution system during normal conditions.

The guidelines for power quality define the roles of the electric distributor and its customers.

Under the draft guidelines for power quality standards, each DU is required to maintain a power quality monitoring system on the performance of its equipment, distribution system and customer facilities. 

The customer causing power quality problems, however, is required to design mitigation measures to reduce the impact of its load to the distribution system.

The PDC also sets reliability standards for electric distributors.  Power reliability is the ability of a power system to continuously provide the required service to customers in a specific time and in a specified environment.

The draft guidelines for power reliability provides reliability indices and specifications of data inclusions and exclusions.  It aims to ensure the continued dependability of electric service to end-users by providing well-defined data for trend analysis in assessing power reliability. 

"Thus, it is an obligation of any DU to avoid and prevent service interruptions to its customers and restore power supply at the shortest time practicable, in case interruptions occur," the ERC said 

Reliability indices are measured thru the System Average Interruption Frequency Index (SAIFI), System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI), and Momentary Average Interruption Frequency Index (MAIFI). 

SAIFI is the average number of interruptions per customer during the period, SAIDI is the average interruption duration per customer during the period, and MAIFI is the average frequency of momentary interruptions per customer during the period.

Both draft guidelines provide that the ERC will publish on its website the summary of quality and reliability performances of all the DUs before the end of the first semester of each year starting 2007, in order to provide comparison of performances over time for a given DU and among DUs.

"The Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) and the PDC empower the ERC to establish and enforce technical standards for DUs to ensure that consumers are provided with safe, efficient, and reliable electricity," ERC chairman Rodolfo B. Albano Jr. said.