Bulletin Index 2001

We periodically post bulletins here to inform customers of developments within BC Hydro Transmission and/or the industry and/or to solicit feedback on policy changes. These announcements can be time sensitive, so please subscribe for the updates.

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Our Transmission Scheduling bulletins for 2001 are listed below. Select another year in the drop-down to view bulletins from the archive.

Title	Bulletin Date
TRM Reduced	August 30, 8:57 a.m.
Daily Prices on OASIS	August 22, 4:12 p.m.
Long-Term Requests and Internal Path Problems - RESOLVED	August 10, 2:55 p.m.
Customer Training Seminar Presentation	August 8, 4:03 p.m.
Customer Focus Sessions - CANCELLED	July 30, 3:56 p.m.
Customer Focus Sessions	July 13, 3:21 p.m.
Eastside North-to-South TTC Restored	June 21, 10:59 a.m.
Updates to Scheduling System and Business Practices	June 20, 7:00 p.m.
Removal of Auto Denial Function in BC Hydro's Tagging System	June 15, 2:59 p.m.
New Scheduling System - Reinstatement Function Operational	June 13, 9:48 a.m.
New Scheduling System - Reinstatement Function	June 8, 8:22 p.m.
Success! New Scheduling System Cut-over	June 6, 10:54 p.m.
Update: New Scheduling System Cut-over	June 6, 9:51 p.m.
New Scheduling System Cut-over Update	June 6, 9:38 p.m.
Update: New Scheduling System Timeline for Cut-over	June 6, 3:12 p.m.
New Scheduling System Timeline for Cut-over	June 6, 2:16 p.m.
GOUP Rollout Update	June 5, 4:27 a.m.
IMPORTANT UPDATE - Technical Difficulties with Cutover	June 4, 10:39 p.m.
New Scheduling System - Deficiencies and Work-Arounds	June 4, 6:32 p.m.
Grid Operations' Scheduling Business Practices	June 4, 2:03 p.m.
Q&A from GOUP Customer Training	June 1, 2:09 p.m.
Outstanding Long-term Transmission Requests	June 1, 9:39 a.m.
North-to-South TTC Restored	May 29, 9:23 a.m.
Scheduling System Upgrade (GOUP) Rollout	May 22, 8:14 p.m.
RESCHEDULED - GOUP Customer Training Seminars	May 16, 3:57 a.m.
DEFERRED - GOUP Customer Training Sessions	May 11, 9:23 a.m.
GOUP Scheduling Business Practices	May 2, 2:53 p.m.

TRM Reduced

Posted on August 30 , 8:57 a.m.

Effective Sunday, 2001 August 26 at 00:01, the normal TRM (Transmission Reliability Margin) for the BC-US and US-BC paths has been reduced from 100 MW to 50 MW in pre-scheduling. The dispatchers will assess the appropriateness of the pre-scheduled TRM level in real time and make adjustments if and when required.

TRM is the amount of transmission transfer capability necessary to ensure that the interconnected transmission network is secure under a reasonable range of uncertainties in system conditions. Although the power flowing on the interties closely follows a pre-defined schedule through automatic generation control (AGC), it fluctuates constantly as a result of the dynamic nature of load and generation on the power system. TRM is put in place to reduce the probability that the actual power flowing on the interties exceeds the capacity (TTC or OTC) for an extensive period of time.

TRM is subtracted from TTC (or OTC) in calculating ATC which is the transmission capacity available for purchase. A reduction in TRM will increase ATC by the same amount.

This reduction in TRM is a result of ongoing improvements made by BC Hydro. We will continue monitoring the intertie performance and adjust TRM as required.

Daily Prices on OASIS

Posted on August 22 , 4:12 p.m.

We are experiencing some technical difficulties with our day ahead prices on OASIS. Please refer to Short Term Firm & Non-Firm PTP Transmission Service for daily postings of the prices for transmission services. Include the correct price in your OASIS request to ensure validation. Confirmation of day ahead prices can also be obtained by contacting the Preschedule office at (604) 473-2724. We apologize for any inconvenience and will inform you as soon as this problem is resolved.

Long-Term Requests and Internal Path Problems - RESOLVED

Posted on August 10 , 2:55 p.m.

Further to the bulletin posted on 4 June at 18:32, we are pleased to announce that the interim procedures established for the long-term requests, internal path reservations, and redirecting with internal paths no longer need to be followed. The technical deficiencies associated with these issues have been resolved. We thank you for your patience regarding these matters.

Customer Training Seminar Presentation

Posted on August 8 , 4:03 p.m.

Since the Customer Training Seminars on May 24 and 28, we have had numerous requests for the presentation in electronic form. During these presentations various errors were identified, which have now been amended. As a result, we are pleased to provide you with this revised presentation (this presentation is out of date now).

Customer Focus Sessions - CANCELLED

Posted on July 30 , 3:56 p.m.

Further to our previous communication dated 13 July 2001, the Customer Focus Sessions must be cancelled due to lack of response. If there is increased customer interest, we will revisit and reschedule this proposition in the fall.

Customer Focus Sessions

Posted on July 13 , 3:21 p.m.

At our Customer Training Seminars on May 24 and 28, respectively, we stated that we would hold Customer Focus Sessions subsequent to GOUP rollout. These three-hour supplemental sessions, scheduled from August 8 to 9, inclusive, in Calgary at Customer-specific premises, will further contribute to Customers’ understanding of our Scheduling Business Practices and automated Scheduling System. Please contact Brenda Ambrosi if you wish to take advantage of this offering. Please state your company name and address, attendee names and positions, contact information, date and time preferences in your e-mail.

Eastside North-to-South TTC Restored

Posted on June 21 , 10:59 a.m.

The temporary imposition of 0 MW scheduling limit North-to-South on the eastside Northern Intertie will be lifted on Monday June 25, 2001 at 00:00:00. The eastside North-to-South TTC has been restored to its normal limit of 400 MW (or 300 MW when the westside is at its maximum of 2850 MW). TTC with normal eastside limits will be posted to OASIS on Saturday June 23, 2001 at 00:00:00.

Updates to Scheduling System and Business Practices

Posted on June 20 , 7:00 p.m.

We continue to analyze the performance of and resolve technical issues associated with our new Scheduling System. As such, the following items are effective 11:00 PPT on 21 June 2001.

1. ATC for Sale in Real-time (Unused Transmission)

Unused Firm and unused Non-Firm transmission, excluding Spinning Reserve and Contingency Reserve, is added to the calculation of Non-Firm and Secondary ATC for the next scheduling hour at XX:15. Currently, the calculation for unused transmission commences at XX:15 and is typically posted at XX:20. It was our intention to have unused transmission posted at XX:15. Therefore, we are moving the time from XX:15 to XX:10. This means the calculation for unused transmission commences at XX:10 for posting at XX:15, the first available time.

Please revise Section 2.3 in the Scheduling Business Practices to reflect this change.

2. OASIS Processing Time

We have improved performance of our Scheduling System by implementing some technical changes. As a result, customers should notice an improvement of up to 45 seconds in total processing time of OASIS transmission requests.

3. Reinstatements

We continue to experience technical difficulties of the reinstatement function. As a result, this functionality will be removed until further notice. In the meantime, ATC will be released to the market when it becomes available.

Removal of Auto Denial Function in BC Hydro's Tagging System

Posted on June 15 , 2:59 p.m.

The auto denial function will be removed from our tagging system effective 15:30 on 15 June 2001. We will be adhering to NERC Policy 3 regarding interchange schedule confirmation and implementation.

New Scheduling System - Reinstatement Function Operational

Posted on June 13 , 9:48 a.m.

Further to our bulletin posted on 8 June 2001 revoking the new functionality of performing reinstatements effective 20:00 PPT on that date, we are pleased to announce that this function has been fixed and will become operational at 10:00 PPT on 13 June 2001. ATC will now be reinstated. We thank you for your patience during this time.

New Scheduling System - Reinstatement Function

Posted on June 8 , 8:22 p.m.

As with any new system implementation we have experienced our challenges over the past few days. We appreciate our customers patience and cooperation and hope that all will be resolved quickly. Unfortunately, the new functionality of performing reinstatements is not working properly and will take some time to fix. As such, effective 20:00 PPT June 8, 2001 we will not be doing reinstatements until the situation is resolved. ATC will be released to the market when it becomes available.

Again we are sorry for the inconvenience.

Success! New Scheduling System Cut-over

Posted on June 6 , 10:54 p.m.

We are pleased to announce the successful implementation of our new Scheduling System. Our new Scheduling Business Practices, as amended on 4 June 2001, will be effective at 01:00 PPT on 7 June 2001 for scheduling at hour ending 03:00 PPT. We will continue to operate under back-up procedures until this scheduling time.

Thank you, once again, for your support and patience regarding this complex transition.

Update: New Scheduling System Cut-over

Posted on June 6 , 9:51 p.m.

Further to our previous notice, we will continue to operate under backup procedures until further notice.

New Scheduling System Cut-over Update

Posted on June 6 , 9:38 p.m.

We're sorry for the delayed notice. A decision will be made very shortly.

Update: New Scheduling System Timeline for Cut-over

Posted on June 6 , 3:12 p.m.

Further to our previous announcement issued today (6 June 2001), we will be proceeding with the cut-over to our new Scheduling System at 18:45. Please refer to our previous announcement entitled "New Scheduling System Timeline for Cut-over" for details.

Thank you.

New Scheduling System Timeline for Cut-over

Posted on June 6 , 2:16 p.m.

We are planning to commence cut-over to our new Scheduling System at 18:45 on 6 June 2001, but will confirm this via another announcement at 15:00 on 6 June 2001. During the outage, we will be operating under BC Hydro Scheduling Application Outages procedure (refer to Section 12.4 of the Scheduling Business Practices) located at Grid Operations' Scheduling Business Practices. At 20:45, we will issue a formal announcement on the BC Hydro Grid Operations' website regarding the successful migration to the new Scheduling System. If we are successful in implementing the new system, our new Scheduling Business Practices will be effective 23:00 on 6 June 2001. However, if we experience technical difficulties, the outage will continue until 22:00 on 6 June 2001 and the current (old) Business Practices will apply.

If you have serious issues pertaining to this announcement, please contact Brenda Ambrosi at (604) 293-5852 immediately.

Again, we thank you for your continued patience in this matter.

GOUP Rollout Update

Posted on June 5 , 4:27 a.m.

Thank you all for your patience with the challenges that we have experienced with the rollout of our new Scheduling Application. Although we have been successful at resolving several issues, there are still a few that remain. At this late hour and approaching the heavy load hours and preschedule period, we have decided to revert back to the old Scheduling System, Processes and Business Practices effective 05:00 PPT June 5, 2001.

We will be continue to work on resolving the issues and hope/expect complete rollout either tonight or the following night using a similar schedule that had been intended for tonight.

We will keep you posted of any changes or new plans as soon as possible.

Thank you again for your patience in this matter.

IMPORTANT UPDATE - Technical Difficulties with Cutover

Posted on June 4 , 10:39 p.m.

We are experiencing some technical difficulties with the cutover to our new Scheduling System and will need to rely on the Alberta and BPA operators to establish the net schedule capacity amounts for each operating hour until further notice.

New Scheduling System - Deficiencies and Work-Arounds

Posted on June 4 , 6:32 p.m.

We apologize, in advance, for the inconvenience and short notice; however, we thought it important to notify Customers regarding a few deficiencies of our new Scheduling System, which will be rolled out this evening (June 4, 2001). Refer to the bulletin entitled Q&A from GOUP Customer Training posted on June 1, 2001 for details regarding roll-out of system. These deficiencies and work-arounds, as follow, will be resolved in the long term.

1) Long-Term Requests

Our new Scheduling System automatically marks all long-term other than a 1 year Yearly requests as INVALID. The Pre-schedule Office will monitor long-term transmission requests on a daily basis and manually correct these errors. However, we ask the Customer to also monitor OASIS and telephone the Pre-schedule Office at (604) 473-2721 if the status of their long-term transmission request has not been corrected.

2) Internal Path Reservations

Our new Scheduling System's interface with OASIS does not recognize non-constrained paths (internal paths) and will mark OASIS requests for those paths INVALID. Similarly a Redirect to a non-constrained (internal) path will also be marked INVALID. The problem is only with the interface so these requests can still be reserved (manually). Consequently the following interim procedures will be required.

For Internal Path Transmission Reservations

Customers should submit their requests for transmission on non constrained (internal) paths via fax to the Pre-schedule Office at (604) 473-2722 (use the Official Transmission Request Fax Form)and via telephone to the Real-time Office at (604) 473-2723
The Pre-schedule or Real-time Office, as appropriate, will enter the transmission reservation manually into our Scheduling System
The Pre-schedule Office will telephone the Customer to provide them with the OASIS number used in the Scheduling System
The Real-time Office will provide the OASIS number while it has the Customer on the telephone

3) Redirecting with Internal Paths

Redirect Constrained to Internal or Internal to Internal

The Customer must request the change in POR/POD via fax to the Pre-schedule Office at (604) 473-2722 (use the Official Transmission Request Fax Form) and via telephone to the Real-time Office at (604) 473-2723

Redirect Firm to Secondary:

The Schedulers will check the AEC of the original transmission reservation to ensure that there is sufficient transmission to permit the redirect
The Schedulers will leave the original transmission reservation as is and enter a new secondary reservation manually into the Scheduling System

Redirecting Back - Secondary to Firm:

The Schedulers will check the AEC of the original transmission request to ensure that there is still sufficient transmission to permit the redirect back
The Schedulers will delete the secondary reservation

Redirect Internal to Constrained

The Customer must request Redirect Firm to Secondary and Redirect back Secondary to Firm using OASIS Redirect in order for the Scheduling System to process the request correctly.

4) Counteroffer

Customers MUST monitor the status of their transmission requests on OASIS and respond accordingly within the Counteroffer timelines as BC Hydro will NOT notify Customers of OASIS status change.

The timer automatically starts when the status of the reservation changes to COUNTEROFFER. Note: Due to a flaw in ESCA's OASIS product (NW OASIS), the MW amount in a COUNTEROFFER will not be visible to the Customer. Therefore, the Customer MUST call the Pre-schedule Office at (604) 473-2721 if they wish to know the capacity (MW amount) of that COUNTEROFFER.

We thank you for your patience in this matter.

Grid Operations' Scheduling Business Practices

Posted on June 4 , 2:03 p.m.

As discussed in the Customer Training Seminars on May 24th and May 28th, attached is our amended Scheduling Business Practices document excluding the TTC & ATC Calculation Methodology section. This section is near completion and will be posted to Grid Operations' website as soon as it is done.

Errata for BPs - 4 June 2001 (Word Format)
Errata for BPs - 4 June 2001 (Pdf Format)

Rollout Amendments Scheduling BPs - 4 June 2001 (Word Format)
Rollout Amendments Scheduling BPs - 4 June 2001 (Pdf Format)

As mentioned in the Customer Training Seminars, after today (June 4, 2001) we will no longer be e-mailing information to you. Rather, you must subscribe to our website for all information.

Q&A from GOUP Customer Training

Posted on June 1 , 2:09 p.m.

Please find attached the Questions and Answers from the GOUP Customer Training session held on May 24th and May 28th. Please review them as there are few important clarifications that differ from the written materials you have to date.

Outstanding Long-term Transmission Requests

Posted on June 1 , 9:39 a.m.

Outstanding Long-term Transmission Requests (PDF)

North-to-South TTC Restored

Posted on May 29 , 9:23 a.m.

Due to significant changes in load/generation pattern in the Pacific Northwest, coupled with high ambient temperatures, the North-to-South TTC on the BPA system has been reduced to levels below 1200 MW. In response to this, BC Hydro has implemented measures such as modifying Remedial Action Schemes which has resulted an estimated increase of 800 to 1000 to the North-to-South TTC.

Scheduling System Upgrade (GOUP) Rollout

Posted on May 22 , 8:14 p.m.

To improve our schedulers' knowledge and increase preparation time for customers, the implementation date for rollout of our scheduling system upgrade (GOUP) will be the evening of 4 June rather than 29 May as previously indicated. At approximately 9:00 p.m. PPT on 4 June we will begin cut-over to our new system. We will provide further details of the rollout as the date nears.

RESCHEDULED - GOUP Customer Training Seminars

Posted on May 16 , 3:57 a.m.

We are pleased to announce that we have rescheduled the two full day Customer Training Seminars. The dates, times, and locations are as follows:

Seminar 1:
Date: May 24, 2001
Time: 7:30 am - 5:00 pm
Location: Hawthorn Hotel & Suites
618 5th Avenue S.W.
Calgary, Alberta
Phone: (403) 263-0520

Seminar 2:
Date: May 28, 2001
Time: 7:30 am - 5:00 pm
Location: The Georgian Court Hotel
773 Beatty Street
Vancouver, B.C.
Phone: (604) 682-5555

As communicated previously, there will be significant changes to the way we conduct our business as we approach the implementation date for the rollout of our scheduling system upgrade (GOUP). These seminars, based on our new Business Practices are designed to assist you in preparing for these changes and are effective date of rollout. Please review them and send your questions or comments to me in advance of the seminars.

The agenda remains the same for the seminars:

Please send an email to me to indicate if you or others in your organization are interested in attending these seminars focused on scheduling process, rules and requirements.

We look forward to seeing you at there.

DEFERRED - GOUP Customer Training Sessions

Posted on May 11 , 9:23 a.m.

We regret to inform you that we are not able to deliver the GOUP Customer Training Sessions as planned next week. Thus, the sessions scheduled for the following dates, times, and locations are DEFERRED.

Session 1:
Date: May 15, 2001
Time: 7:30 am - 5:00 pm
Location: Prince Royal Suites Hotel
618 5th Avenue S.W.
Calgary, Alberta

Session 2:
Date: May 17, 2001
Time: 7:30 am - 5:00 pm
Location: The Georgian Court Hotel
773 Beatty Street
Vancouver, B.C.

We will inform you of the new dates and particulars as soon as the details are worked out.

Please pass this note on to others you may have invited. Specifically,
Janet Borden/Donna Grasdal, please inform Roy Alvarez of the deferral;
Rob Baker/Fred Ritter, please inform Katie Johnson of the deferral;
Doug Heath, please inform Doug Laird, Cheryl Runge, Al Gulutzan, Mike Nozdryn-Plotnicki, Jagtar Tatla, and Ken Gardner of the deferral; and
Mike Lee, please inform all Powerex personnel signed up for the 17 May session of the deferral.

We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause you.

GOUP Scheduling Business Practices

Posted on May 2 , 2:53 p.m.

As indicated in an earlier notice, BC Hydro Grid Operations will be offering Customer Training on the new business practices and procedures relating to Wholesale Transmission Services and scheduling.

To assist staff and customers in their preparation for and transition to this significant change we have developed a comprehensive "Scheduling Business Practices" document (pdf format). This document describes all of the relevant business practices and procedures that will be in effect starting May 29, 2001.

With the exception of one important section, TTC & ATC Calculation Methodology, that is near completion and will be circulated as soon as it is done, the document is complete. I thought it was important to get the other numerous rules and practices out in front of our staff and customers. The document may be editted to improve clarity, but should not alter any rules.

Note: Today will be the first time any of our scheduling staff will have access to these rules. As such, they should not be contacted to respond to or answer questions on any of these rules. If you have questions or need clarification on any of these rules you can contact one of the following individuals:

Laura Letourneau - (604) 473-2707
Brenda Ambrosi - (604) 293-5852
Ann Morrison (Pre.) - (604) 473-2751
Gord Rawlings (RT) - (604) 293-5824

We encourage you all to review these rules thoroughly, preferably before the Customer Training Seminars, and to provide us specific questions and issues you would like addressed in the training.