BHUBANESWAR: The Odisha Electricity Regulatory Commission (OERC) has invited suggestions and objections to the proposed resource adequacy (RA) framework which will enable advance planning for procurement of power to meet projected demand cost-effectively.
“The RA framework will cover a mechanism for demand assessment and forecasting, generation resource planning, procurement planning, monitoring and compliance. The new generation capacities, energy storage and other flexible resources that are required to reliably meet future demand growth at optimal cost will be assessed well in advance,” OERC sources said .
The distribution licensees and GRIDCO will undertake long-term, medium-term and short-term distribution resource adequacy plan (DRAP) to meet peak demand and energy requirements. The state regulator has suggested that GRIDCO may keep the share of long-term contracts in the range of 75-80 per cent of the resource adequacy requirement (RAR) and medium-term contracts in the range of 10-20 per cent of the RAR while the rest will be met through short-term contracts.
As per the draft regulations, the distribution licensee will develop a methodology for hourly demand forecasting and maintain a historical database. It will utilise state-of-the-art tools, scientific and mathematical methodologies and comprehensive data but not limited to weather data, historical data, demographic and econometric data, consumption profiles, policies and drivers as may be applicable to their control area.
GRIDCO will map all its existing contracted, upcoming and retiring resources to develop the resource map in MW for long-term and medium-term power procurement plan. It will conduct sensitivity and probability analysis to determine the most probable resource gap. It will also develop long-term, medium-term and short-term resource gap plans for possible scenarios, while ensuring that at least three different scenarios (most probable, business as usual, and aggressive) are developed.
“This is a time-bound and scientific approach to assess the electricity demand for future, and taking necessary actions to procure resources in advance to meet this demand will ensure that the practice of load shedding by power distribution companies and occurrence of electricity supply crunch periods is avoided in the future,” sources said.
The new regulations will apply to the GRIDCO, distribution licensees, generating companies, state load despatch centre, state transmission utility and stakeholders within the state.