Transmission reliability under restructuring

Reliability management and commercial practices governing the electric power industry in North America are changing rapidly. Significant commercial opportunity and reliability challenges exist as energy merchants and reliability engineers develop the commercial and reliability systems and policies to bring order to the marketplace and provide continued reliability of service. As the players develop commercial practices and reliability policies to deal with open access competition, we find that the two are inextricably linked. No longer can traders act independent of reliability rules and no longer can reliability rules be implemented that place undue burden on commercial activity. The coexistence of increasing commercial activity and the growing importance of electric reliability is resulting in the rapid development of new reliability policies and transaction management systems in North America. This paper reviews commercial and reliability impacts of open access, solutions to these commercial and reliability threats, and a view of what the future holds for open access competition in North America.