1. Pursuant to section 172I of the Electricity Act 1992 (“Act”), I notify the amendment of the Electricity Governance Rules 2003 (“Rules”) under section 172H of the Act.
2. The empowering provisions for the Electricity Governance Regulations 2003 in relation to which the amendments to the Rules are made are sections 172D (1) (3) and 172D (1) (4) of the Act.
3. The existing policy statement in Schedule C4 of Part
C of the Rules will be replaced in its entirety with a new Schedule C4. The key changes from the existing Schedule C4 are set out below:
(a) Specific inclusion of events arising during asset commissioning (clause 12.1) as possible credible events that might cause cascade failure;
(b) defining the term “transmission circuit”, the loss of which is described as a contingent event in clause 12.4, as being any transmission line owned by the grid owner, or any distribution line owned by a participant to which not less than a sum of 60 MW of generation is connected and which distribution line is connected to the grid primarily for the purpose of injection into the grid;
(c) a minor drafting change to the wording of clause
24 relating to frequency keeping and time error management;
(d) inclusion of a new section on regional contingency planning (clauses 40-41) to reflect the role the system operator plays in co-ordinating management of power security in regions as may be required from time to time;
(e) inclusion of new clauses (56-59) in the “Allocation of Demand Reduction” section to outline existing demand shedding process and, in particular, the status of, and process for, issuing demand allocation notices;
(f) inclusion of new clauses (83-85) which provide a process by which asset owners can notify the system operator of temporary unexpected changes to asset capability via an urgent change notice (a newly defined term); and
(g) inclusion of a new clause (108) to inform asset owners that they can use a template, which the system operator will publish on its web site, to inform the system operator of asset capabilities during commissioning or other testing.
4. Pursuant to section 172Z (4) of the Act, the reasons for my decision to amend the Rules are that:
? the changes contained in the new Schedule C4
improve the policies and means by which the system operator can comply with the principal performance obligations and provide better transparency and clarity
to participants as to the policies the system operator intends to follow to meet the principal performance obligations; and
? the new policy statement complies with the requirement in the Rules to review the policy statement annually.
5. These Rules come into force on 31 August 2006.
6. Copies of the Rules may be inspected free of charge or purchased from the Electricity Commission, Level Seven, ASB Bank Tower, 2 Hunter Street, Wellington.
The Rules can also be viewed on the Electricity Commission’s web site:
http://www.electricitycommission.govt.nz/rulesandregs/rules
Dated at Wellington this 19th day of July 2006.
DAVID PARKER, Minister of Energy.