Bulletin Index 2003

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 2003 are listed below. Select another year in the drop-down to view bulletins from the archive.

Title	Bulletin Date
Amended Business Practice	December 19, 11:57 a.m.
Transmission System Capital Plan	December 16, 5:08 p.m.
OASIS restored	December 12, 9:30 p.m.
OASIS outage	December 12, 8:25 p.m.
NW OASIS Administrator to Block Customers	December 10, 1:19 p.m.
ATC/TTC Upload Changes & Post Schedule Details	December 9, 10:16 a.m.
OASIS Outage Update	December 8, 4:07 p.m.
BCTC OASIS Outage-RTS	December 6, 9:28 a.m.
BCTC OASIS Outage	December 6, 9:22 a.m.
Amended Business Practice	December 5, 3:39 p.m.
BCTC OASIS Outage	December 5, 10:03 a.m.
OASIS Outage	December 5, 8:42 a.m.
OASIS Outage	December 5, 8:38 a.m.
BCTC OASIS Outage	December 4, 1:48 p.m.
OASIS Outage	December 4, 12:49 a.m.
ATC/TTC Upload Changes	December 3, 3:34 p.m.
Post Schedule Details Functionality - Operational	December 2, 4:42 p.m.
WTS SCHEDULING 101 WORKSHOP	December 2, 4:27 p.m.
Business Practice-Notice of Long-term Transmission Contract Start Date	November 3, 2:56 p.m.
TTC Postings to Oasis for 26 October 2003	October 26, 1:12 p.m.
Temporary Etag System Outage - NOW OVER	October 20, 2:05 p.m.
Temporary Etag System Outage	October 20, 1:22 p.m.
Business Practice Posted for Comment	October 17, 9:56 a.m.
Transmission Scheduling System Outage - Complete	September 30, 12:52 p.m.
Transmission Scheduling System Outage	September 30, 12:34 p.m.
BCTC OASIS Outage	September 30, 10:26 a.m.
BCTC OASIS outage	September 29, 11:17 p.m.
NWOASIS Outage - Complete	September 16, 6:56 a.m.
NWOASIS Outage	September 16, 2:54 a.m.
Temporary Relocation of Pre-schedule Dept. - Complete	September 15, 2:09 p.m.
NWOASIS Planned Outage	September 15, 2:06 p.m.
Temporary Relocation of Pre-schedule Dept.	September 12, 10:27 a.m.

Amended Business Practice

Posted on December 19 , 11:57 a.m.

Market Operations' has amended Table 1 in Section 4, Transmission Reservation Procedures, of its Business Practices to include new and revised PORs and PODs.

Transmission System Capital Plan

Posted on December 16 , 5:08 p.m.

British Columbia Transmission Corporation (BCTC) is filing a Revenue Requirement Application with the British Columbia Utilities Commission (BCUC) as part of an overall Revenue Requirement Application by BC Hydro. BCTC must file its revenue requirements together with BC Hydro until BCTC is a filing utility with its own tariff (expected on or about April 2005).

BCTC’s Transmission System Capital Plan (Capital Plan) is being filed under section 4 of chapter 6 of the Revenue Requirement Application. An excerpt of the current Capital Plan, which addresses only the two year test period of the revenue requirement filing, is reproduced at the BCTC website http://www2.bctransco.com/system/pdf/excerpt_rev_req_chapter6_section4.pdf. The entire Revenue Requirement Application can be found at BC Hydro’s website at http://www.bchydro.com/info/epi/epi9213.html.

BCTC’s Capital Planning cycle normally continues through the Fall. We expect the ten-year Capital Plan, effective 01 April 2004, to be finalized in early 2004. We expect to honour the fiscal targets identified in the revenue requirement; however, there may be some incremental changes in projects and allocation among project portfolios to reflect the latest customer requests, load forecasts and asset condition assessments. Going forward, we plan to update published capital plan information quarterly.

Please call Scott Woronuik (VP, Investment Planning & Strategy) at 604-699-7300 if you wish to discuss the Capital Plan.

OASIS restored

Posted on December 12 , 9:30 p.m.

BPA OASIS node is back in service. All requests for BCTC transmission services shall be submitted through OASIS as usual.

OASIS outage

Posted on December 12 , 8:25 p.m.

BPA OASIS is out of service. BCTC will accept manual requests of transmission services until OASIS is restored.

NW OASIS Administrator to Block Customers

Posted on December 10 , 1:19 p.m.

As a result of several outages over the past week, the NW OASIS Administrator (Administrator) reviewed OASIS logs in an effort to determine the cause of the problem. The Administrator advised us that the root of the problem was customers performing constant queries on the NW OASIS node, which severely hampered performance thereby compromising the integrity of the NW OASIS node.

As such, this is to remind customers that the Administrator still restricts customers to 200 transactions (transtatus, transoffering, requests, etc.) per hour per company NOT 200 transactions per certificate per company. The Administrator will continue to conduct random checks to ensure that the 200-transaction limit is not violated. If the Administrator determines that a customer is violating this restriction, it will be forced to block all transactions for that particular customer without warning. Once a customer is blocked they can no longer transact on BC Transmission Corporation's system via the NW OASIS node either automatically or manually (in pre-schedule and real-time). Therefore, they should contact Brett Hallborg at 604-293-5852 and leave their name and telephone number on his voice mail if he is unavailable. He will then inform the Administrator, who in turn, will contact that particular customer for resolution of the situation.

Once the Administrator is satisfied with OASIS activity, it will consider increasing the transactional restriction. Nonetheless, another bulletin will be posted at that time advising customers of the Administrator's change in policy.

We thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

ATC/TTC Upload Changes & Post Schedule Details

Posted on December 9 , 10:16 a.m.

This is a reminder that ATC/TTC Upload Changes are effective 13:00:00 PPT today, December 9, 2003. Please refer to the bulletin posted December 3, 2003 @ 15:34 for details regarding those changes.

In addition, Post Schedule Details will be operational effective 02:00:00 PPT on December 10, 2003. Please refer to the bulletin posted December 2, 2003 @ 16:42 for an explanation of the functionality and instructions for accessing schedule details. Note that after-the-fact adjustments will not be reflected in Post Schedule Details; therefore, customers should still refer to the BCTC Settlements web page at https://www2.bctransco.com/settlements/index.php for precise settlement information.

OASIS Outage Update

Posted on December 8 , 4:07 p.m.

BCTC has been working with its OASIS provider to determine the source of the OASIS outages we have been experiencing the last few days. It has been determined that the HTTP 403 errors (too many users accessing the server) are being caused by a large number of customers submitting a large number of template requests.

For example, between 11/25 and 12/5, the daily number of template requests/hits went from approximately 80,000 to over 127,000. As suspected, the big jump was last Thursday, 12/4.

As you may or may not be aware, the current limit for a single customer is 200 template hits in a single hour and thus as you might guess from the daily hits, several customers are exceeding this value by a large amount. Thus BCTC and our OASIS provider will be monitoring OASIS closely over the next few days.

Our OASIS provider is providing statistics and we will be following up with the companies involved.

BCTC OASIS Outage-RTS

Posted on December 6 , 9:28 a.m.

The BCTC OASIS has returned to service, effective 09:28 December 6, 2003.

Normal scheduling procedures are now in effect.

BCTC OASIS Outage

Posted on December 6 , 9:22 a.m.

OASIS is not functioning in both Pre-schedule and Realtime. Therefore, backup procedures are now in place until further notice. This outage should be resolved shortly and we will post another notice once OASIS is back on-line.Thank you for your patience.

Amended Business Practice

Posted on December 5 , 3:39 p.m.

BCTC's Section 4, Transmission Reservation Procedures, of its Business Practices is amended to clarify and elaborate on the notes appended to Tables 2 and 3 in sub-section 4.3, Scheduling Timelines. In addition, the responsibilities of BCTC and BC Hydro are elucidated.

BCTC OASIS Outage

Posted on December 5 , 10:03 a.m.

The BCTC OASIS outage is now complete, effective 10:00 December 5, 2003. Normal scheduling procedures are now if effect.

OASIS Outage

Posted on December 5 , 8:42 a.m.

The time of this official outage is 7:20 PST.

OASIS Outage

Posted on December 5 , 8:38 a.m.

BCTC OASIS Outage

Posted on December 4 , 1:48 p.m.

The BCTC OASIS outage is now complete, effective 13:50 December 4, 2003. Normal scheduling procedures are now if effect.

OASIS Outage

Posted on December 4 , 12:49 a.m.

ATC/TTC Upload Changes

Posted on December 3 , 3:34 p.m.

Effective 13:00:00 PPT on 9 December 2003, we are pleased to be implementing the following changes to ATC/TTC upload:

Capacity Type	Class	Service Increment	Current Posting Practice	9 December 2003 Posting Practice
ATC/TTC	Firm & Non-Firm	Hourly	2 to 5 days	7 days
ATC/TTC	Firm & Non-Firm	Daily	28 days	30 days
ATC/TTC	Firm & Non-Firm	Monthly	+1 month to +12 months	Current month (0) to +12 months (Total number of months posted will be 13)
TTC	Firm	Hourly/Daily/Monthly	N/A	For all paths

Post Schedule Details Functionality - Operational

Posted on December 2 , 4:42 p.m.

We are pleased to announce the implementation of Post Schedule Details functionality effective 02:00:00 PPT on 10 December 2003. This functionality will run once per day between 02:00:00 and 06:00:00 PPT, posting the previous day's information to OASIS so that customers can view detailed information regarding scheduled uses of reserved capacity.

Specifically, Post Schedule Details serves two functions. First, it posts energy schedule information to OASIS for schedules that have flowed on the previous day. Second, it posts the curtailment details that occurred for those energy schedules.

In the future, customers will be able to query Post Schedule Details via OASIS. Another bulletin will be posted when this is feasible. However, in the interim, due to external configuration issues, customers will have to enter a query via URL to obtain desired results using the following instructions:

Instructions for Accessing Schedule Details

To access all the schedule details for your company, copy and paste the following URL into your Internet Explorer, which shows the schedule details for BCHA as the primary provider:

https://www.nwoasis.org/OASIS/BCHA/data/scheduledetail?%20ver=
1.4&templ=scheduledetail&fmt=HTML&pprov=BCHA%20&pprovduns=
253730519

Then choose a desired start and stop time of the query and append it to the aforementioned URL. The following is an example:

&stime=20030802000000PD&sptime=20030804000000PD

Note that the start and stop time for the time parameters can be changed as long as it adheres to the format YYYYMMDDHHMMSSTZ.

Wherein YYYY = year; MM = month; DD = day; HH = hour; MM = minute; SS = second; TZ = timezone = PD (Pacific Daylight ) or PS (Pacific Standard).

So, an example of a complete URL address for a query with a specified start and stop time is as follows:

https://www.nwoasis.org/OASIS/BCHA/data/scheduledetail?%20ver=
1.4&templ=scheduledetail&fmt=HTML&pprov=BCHA%20&pprovduns=
253730519&stime=20030802000000PD&sptime=20030804000000PD

Additional parameters that customers might want to add to their query are:

Customer Code - A customer might want to query only their requests, so they would have to append the following to the end of the query "&cust=insert your four letter company code here"
So, the query would look like :

https://www.nwoasis.org/OASIS/BCHA/data/scheduledetail?%20ver=
1.4&templ=scheduledetail&fmt=HTML&pprov=BCHA%20&pprovduns=
253730519&stime=20030802000000PD&sptime=
20030804000000PD&cust=XXXX

Wherein XXXX represents the specific customer code
Path Name – A customer might want to see all postings for a particular path. The formatting for a path is a little complex because all "/" must be replaced with "%2F" and all " - " must be replaced by "+-+". So for example "W/BCHA/BCHA - BPAT//" would be "W%2FBCHA%2FBCHA+-+BPAT%2F%2F". Therefore in order to pull up requests for the path append the following to the aforementioned query "&path=W%2FBCHA%2FBCHA+-+BPAT%2F%2F

So, the query would look like:

https://www.nwoasis.org/OASIS/BCHA/data/scheduledetail?%20ver=
1.4&templ=scheduledetail&fmt=HTML&pprov=BCHA%20&pprovduns=
253730519&stime=20030802000000PD&sptime=
20030804000000PD&path=W%2FBCHA%2FBCHA+-+BPAT%2F%2F

WTS SCHEDULING 101 WORKSHOP

Posted on December 2 , 4:27 p.m.

The British Columbia Transmission Corporation (BCTC) invites you to attend a training workshop to provide a hands-on introduction to Wholesale Transmission Services, OASIS, how to reserve transmission and schedule energy. This workshop is aimed at participants who have had little experience with purchasing transmission services, and using OASIS.

Business Practice-Notice of Long-term Transmission Contract Start Date

Posted on November 3 , 2:56 p.m.

BCTC posted a bulletin on October 17, 2003 asking for comments on the following draft business practice:

When Network Upgrades are constructed to provide Long-term transmission service, BCTC will provide the Transmission Customer with 30 days notice of the Start Date of the ransmission service.

The bulletin asked for comments by October 31,2003. BCTC posted a bulletin on Friday October 31 stating that BCTC received no comments and therefore the business practice was final. However, later on October 31, 2003, BCTC did receive comments. Since BCTC asked for comments by October 31, 2003 and did not specify a cut-off time, BCTC will consider the comments.

BCTC received the following comments from Powerex on October 31, 2003 @ 3:37 p.m. on the above business practice:

Powerex has two comments regarding the proposed Business Practice entitled "Notice of Long-term Transmission Contract Start Date"

1) The letter providing notice of the contract start date should summarize the Network Upgrades that were constructed and the final costs of the upgrades;

2) Given that it may take time to negotiate power contracts to coincide with the start date of the Long-term Transmission Contract we believe the business practice should read:

"When Network Upgrades are constructed to provide Long-term transmission service, BCTC will provide the Transmission Customer with written notice at least sixty (60) days in advance of the calendar month in which service is to commence. The Transmission Customer may accept a shorter notice period if the Transmission Customer determines that an earlier start date is acceptable."

BCTC responds as follows:

BCTC will not include Network Upgrade cost information in the notice letter. In a separate letter, BCTC will provide the Transmission Customer with a summary of Network Upgrade costs to the extent that the Network Upgrades have been built.
BCTC believes the 30 days notice is reasonable for the following reasons:

The WTS Tariff does not require a notice period.
BCTC provides updates on the progress of the Network Upgrade construction.
Per the WTS Tariff, a Transmission Customer has 30 days to commit to a long-term transmission contract following the completion of a Facilities Study. We believe the process and decision of committing to a long-term transmission contract is at least, if not more, complex and commercially significant than the business issues that arise due to this business practice.

After considering the comments received, the final business practice is:

When Network Upgrades are constructed to provide Long-term transmission service, British Columbia Transmission Corporation will provide the Transmission Customer with 30 days notice of the Start Date of the transmission service.

TTC Postings to Oasis for 26 October 2003

Posted on October 26 , 1:12 p.m.

Due to problems associated with the extra hour on 26 October 2003, TTC is posting incorrectly for 26 October on Oasis. However the ATC is posting correctly. To purchase transmission through Oasis please review the ATC posting on the path you wish to purchase to get the available capacity value.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.

Temporary Etag System Outage - NOW OVER

Posted on October 20 , 2:05 p.m.

We are happy o announce that the temporary outage for eTags is now over. Please continue to submit Realtime and re-submit any Pre-schedule eTags that have been denied. Once again we apologise for any inconvenience.

Temporary Etag System Outage

Posted on October 20 , 1:22 p.m.

Please discontinue submitting eTags for Realtime and Pre-schedule until further notice. We have been notified by our IT team of a processing problem since mid morning.

You may call the Realtime dispatcher with any Realtime schedules, unfortunately,any Pre-schedule tags previously submitted will be denied and must be re-submitted once our eTag system is up and running. We will let you know as soon as possible when to re-submit.

We apologise for any inconvenience.

Business Practice Posted for Comment

Posted on October 17 , 9:56 a.m.

British Columbia Transmission Corporation (BCTC) posts for comment the following business practice relating to notice to Transmission Customers of Long-term transmission service Start Date. This business practice only applies when Network Upgrades are constructed to accommodate the Long-term transmission service.

Please provide comments to mark.prosperi-porta@bctransco.com by October 31, 2003.

Background

Where Network Upgrades are required to accommodate Long-term transmission service, BCTC will provide the Network Upgrade cost and schedule information in the Facilities Study. Based on these in-service schedules, a Service Agreement for Long-term transmission service is tendered to the Transmission Customer. BCTC will begin work to construct the Network Upgrade immediately after the Service Agreement is executed.

In the course of doing the detailed work to construct the Network Upgrades, BCTC may find that the in-service date differs from that identified in the Facilities Study, which may impact the Start Date of the executed Service Agreement.

In the event the Network Upgrade schedule differs from that described in the Facilities Study causing a change to the Start Date of the transmission service, BCTC will notify the Transmission Customer as soon as possible. The BC Hydro WTS Tariff and Service Agreement contain provisions for dealing with delays and/or advancements.

Business Practice - Notice of Long-term Transmission Contract Start Date
When Network Upgrades are constructed to provide Long-term transmission service, BCTC will provide the Transmission Customer with 30 days notice of the Start Date of the transmission service.

Transmission Scheduling System Outage - Complete

Posted on September 30 , 12:52 p.m.

Work on TSS has been completed effective 12:52:00.

Transmission Scheduling System Outage

Posted on September 30 , 12:34 p.m.

BCTC will be taking an outage on it's Transmission Scheduling System (TSS) @ 12:45 PDT September 30th 2003. This outage is required to update TSS functionality. Expected outage duration is 5-10 minutes and should have no effect on external customers, therefor normal scheduling procedures will apply.

A subsequent bulletin will be posted when the outage is complete.

BCTC OASIS Outage

Posted on September 30 , 10:26 a.m.

The BCTC OASIS outage is now complete, effective 10:19:00 September 30, 2003. Normal scheduling procedures are now if effect.

BCTC OASIS outage

Posted on September 29 , 11:17 p.m.

The BCTC OASIS site is experiencing technical problems. OASIS requests are not being processed correctly. Please resort to back-up procedures until further notice. Refer to scheduling business practices section 12.0 for information on back-up procedures.

NWOASIS Outage - Complete

Posted on September 16 , 6:56 a.m.

The NWOASIS outage and subsequent BCTC outage have been completed effective 7:00 am Pacific on September 16th 2003. Normal scheduling procedures are now in effect.

NWOASIS Outage

Posted on September 16 , 2:54 a.m.

NWOASIS will be going ahead with a planned outage @ 3:00am on September 16th 2003. This outage is required for a hardware upgrade. The outage is expected to last until 6:00am.

Following the return of NWOASIS, BCTC will be taking a shorter 15 minute outage to perform some additional work at our end. A subsequent bulletin will be posted when normal OASIS transactions can be resumed.

Temporary Relocation of Pre-schedule Dept. - Complete

Posted on September 15 , 2:09 p.m.

The Pre-schedule department has returned to Baxter Place following the weekend power outage. Please use the normal fax number.

NWOASIS Planned Outage

Posted on September 15 , 2:06 p.m.

BCTC would like to inform you of a planned outage of NWOASIS scheduled for September 16th 2003 from 3:30am to 6:00am. This outage is necessary for hardware upgrades to be performed by our OASIS provider.

Following the completion of the outage, BCHA will take an additional 15 minute outage to complete upgrades at our end. A subsequent bulletin will be posted when normal procedures can be followed.

Per the Business Practices, backup procedures "must" be used during the outage to secure transmission. If you have any questions please contact Brett Hallborg @ 604-293-5852.

Temporary Relocation of Pre-schedule Dept.

Posted on September 12 , 10:27 a.m.

To facilitate a planned power outage for the Baxter Place office on Saturday September 13th, the Pre-schedule department will be temporarily relocated to SCC for the balance of the weekend effective noon September 12th. Pre-schedule will be moved back to Baxter Place @ noon on Monday Sept 15th. Contact numbers for Pre-schedule for the duration of the move are:

Phones - "No change" Fax - "604-473-2738"

Any questions please contact Brett Hallborg @ 604-293-5852.