Mr. Ali Bukar, General Manager, Regulation & Compliance of TCN
-Felix Douglas
Delivering his keynote address on Grid Capacity Regional Control System, the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer (MD/CEO), of Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Engr. Sule Abdulaziz, asserted that West African Power (WAP) was created in 1999 by decision ADDEC 51199 and established in 2006 through decision of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) by authority of member states and government.
Engr. Abdulaziz was represented by Ali Bukar, General Manager; Regulation & Compliance of TCN, said the vision of WAP was to integrate national power systems into a unified regional electricity market with goal of providing in medium, long term, regular and reliable energy at a competitive cost to citizens of ECOWAS member states.
The vision of WAP is to promote and develop power generation and transmission infrastructures as well as coordinate power exchange among the member states of ECOWAS. As of today, ECOWAS has about 13 out of 14 land countries in West Africa connected. The fifth state in ECOWAS is Cape Verde which is an island that cannot be connected but 13 out of the land countries are connected. The only country not interconnected is Guinea-Bissau. It is expected that CLSG that is Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and OMBG projects when completed by end of the year or first quarter of next year will lead to complete interconnection of all 14 mainland ECOWAS countries and also part of the LSSG and OMBG projects have already been commissioned.
Until July 2023, WAP has been operating as three synchronous blocks with Nigeria, Niger, and part of Togo, Benin being a single synchronous block while others are occupying the second individual blocks consisting of power systems of other countries.
However, since 8th July 2023, WAP successfully synchronized the other two blocks awaiting the synchronization of Nigeria, Niger and part of Togo and Benin. With a fully synchronized interconnected WAP power system possibly by the end of 2024, there will be opportunity for power plants in Nigeria and any other power plants in any of the member states to export electricity freely from one country to the other. From Nigeria to Taiwan, the 33 KB Ikeja second line and ongoing 330 KB North Pole project from Kano, Niger to Burkina Faso.
The TCN CEO made it known that as at June 2023, there were 16 transmission system operators in WAP region, 13 PPA and eight bilateral agreements were signed. Some of these bilateral agreements were grandfathered agreements that were signed before commencement of regional electricity market and some of them agreed to be transformed into bilateral agreements to conduct their business in accordance with the regional electricity market.
However, agreements before electricity market were based on regional solidarity. Nigeria exported power to Niger without concrete cross-border electricity trade but some of those agreements were transformed after commencement of electricity market in 2018. The control system and tools for controlling regional grid code is Information and Coordination Center (ICC) of WAP. ICC is an organ of WAP General Secretary that oversees operation coordination between members who own, operate, and transmit network as well as electricity market management. The objective of ICC is to promote operational coordination between transmission owners or operators within WAP region and actual day-to-day information sharing or exchange between WAP operational coordination centers which are scattered in the region to facilitate efficient trading of power between entities in different countries within West Africa.
Responsibilities of ICC
The responsibility is to collect, analyze, and disseminate information needed to gauge evolution of interconnected electricity generation and transmission systems in WAP region. Also to monitor development of national electricity power systems among member states in order to forewarn the risk of performance deficiencies and provide them with corrective measures.
Theoretically analyze the economic and technical viability of cross-border electricity trade arrangements among transmission users in member states. Develop and maintain an electronic database of relevant technical information as approved by the Executive Board of WAP.
According to Engr. Abdulaziz, the West African market has drafted some documents to guide operations and business of electricity within African states. The first was WAP and West African Transmission Service Access and Use Procedure. Market rule and connection code were also drafted. But currently, the member states have contracted a consultant to draft regional grid code.
Regional grid code has been drafted. Presently, there is Regional Electricity Regulatory Authority (RERA) that is reviewing regional grid code after it has been approved. The documents are now in use. The West African Transmission Service Access and Use Procedure, regional electricity market and regional connection code will all be banished and replaced by regional grid code.
Contents of Grid Code
The grid code contains a chapter that is called connection code. The connection code aims to govern technical condition for access of generation facilities and high-voltage DC systems in grid of member states. It also has a market code in it. The market code governs efficient, competitive, transparent and reliable market of operation, establishes and assigns monitoring of surveillance functions of region. The metering code outlines common principles and specifies minimum technical design requirements as well as establishes basic rules for assessing meters remotely, collecting the meter reading and data collection for grid operators and other actors in WAP.
It also contains operational code. The operational code governs rules for supervisory and control of the electricity cross-border interconnections in the region. There is a chapter for planning known as planning code and it is meant to regulate process for development of planning of cross-border interconnection of WAP power system. The system operators training code which is aimed at proper interaction and training of operators with complexity of system and interconnected power.
There is also in place roadmap creation of System Market Operator (SMO). SMO is inspected and created to supervise system and market operations in addition to drafting and implementing procedures. There is market monitoring and surveillance procedures with organ system market operator and electricity regulatory authority.
Procurement of ancillary services is one of the three products of regional electricity market. In any electricity market, only three products are feasible, that is minimum products can be found in energy capacity and ancillary services. It also provided for effective control of electricity network. Generators and other actors in the electricity market will be ready to offer ancillary services.
Meanwhile, energy storage is missing in regional electricity market which incidentally is one of the shortcomings of the new Act.
This Act in 2003 did not tackle the issue of storage. Renewable energy system cannot be deployed effectively if there are no storage facilities or techniques.
Individually, anyone can store electricity in the present technology system and there should be a regulation in regional electricity market as to how much energy an individual or a household can store including national level. Regulation is to regulate amount of energy a household is supposed to store for safety.
Technology of supervision of control in ICC has been tested successfully in the West Africa region in three out of four control areas in WAP. The bidding platform for day-ahead markets is currently operational while final test training of participants is underway.
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