Bulletin Index 2004

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 2004 are listed below. Select another year in the drop-down to view bulletins from the archive.

Title	Bulletin Date
Extended Windows for US Holiday	December 30, 8:44 a.m.
WTS Final Rates	December 28, 12:09 p.m.
Regulatory Filing - Capital Plan/Vancouver Island	December 20, 4:14 p.m.
Regulatory Filing - Vancouver Island	December 17, 3:22 p.m.
BCTC OASIS	December 10, 7:28 p.m.
TSS Outage Over	December 10, 3:14 p.m.
BCTC OASIS is Down	December 10, 3:03 p.m.
TSS is not Functioning in Pre-schedule	December 10, 10:45 a.m.
Extended Windows for Christmas & New Year	December 6, 9:31 a.m.
Standards of Conduct Compliance Agreement and Written Procedures	November 23, 12:01 p.m.
Extended Windows for US Holiday	November 22, 2:34 p.m.
OATI (eTag) Outage - 30 November 2004	November 22, 10:30 a.m.
Impact Study - BC Hydro 275 MW Import From Alberta (978762)	November 15, 3:35 p.m.
OASIS Back In Service	November 15, 10:04 a.m.
OASIS Outage	November 15, 9:31 a.m.
Monthly Service Offerings for April and October 2005 - RESOLVED	November 10, 5:22 p.m.
Interim Redirect Business Practice for Long-Term Confirmed Contracts	November 2, 1:43 p.m.
Monthly Service Offerings for April and October 2005	November 1, 1:33 p.m.
OASIS Outage	October 31, 1:35 a.m.
OASIS Back in Service	October 31, 1:09 a.m.
Profile Transmission Requests During Time Change	October 29, 9:28 a.m.
BCTC back to normal	October 24, 6:55 p.m.
Amended Business Practices	October 22, 4:48 p.m.
OASIS Outage Over	October 14, 12:26 p.m.
OASIS outage	October 14, 12:00 p.m.
OASIS Outage Over	October 9, 11:39 a.m.
OASIS Outage	October 9, 10:21 a.m.
OASIS Outage	October 9, 8:38 a.m.
Pre-schedule and ATF Telephone and Fax Number Changes	October 8, 9:49 a.m.
OASIS Outage Over	October 6, 10:56 a.m.
OASIS Outage	October 6, 9:55 a.m.
Extended Windows for Long Weekend	October 4, 9:31 a.m.
Offering of Monthly Service Commencing December 1, 2004	October 1, 2:26 p.m.
EAL>BCHA ATC/TTC Postings	September 29, 4:25 p.m.
Standards of Conduct Application	September 23, 9:58 a.m.
Scheduling Services Back to Normal	September 12, 11:23 a.m.
OASIS Outage	September 12, 7:51 a.m.
OASIS outage	September 11, 4:09 p.m.
EAL>BCHA ATC/TTC Postings - Soliciting Customer Comments	September 3, 3:49 p.m.

Extended Windows for US Holiday

Posted on December 30 , 8:44 a.m.

Market Operations is pleased to visually clarify the opening of the extended windows for purchasing transmission over US Holiday on Monday Jan 17, 2005. For further clarification please contact the Preschedule Office @ 604-699-7575.

WTS Final Rates

Posted on December 28 , 12:09 p.m.

WTS Rates

Pursuant to the British Columbia Utilities Commission Order No. G-96-04, the BC Hydro Wholesale Transmission Service (WTS) rates are as follows:

Rate Schedule 3000

The Monthly Network Transmission Revenue Requirement is $38,511,475.

Rate Schedule 3001

The Long-Term Firm Point-to-Point rate is $4.499 per kW of Reserved Capacity per month on paths with PORs in the Southern Interior of BC or Alberta and PODs in the Lower Mainland, Vancouver Island, or BPA. For all other paths the Long-Term Firm Point-to-Point rate is reduced to $4.079 per kW of Reserved Capacity per month.

The Short-Term Firm maximum hourly price is $0.0062 per kW of Reserved Capacity per hour.

Rate Schedule 3002

The Short-Term Non-Firm maximum hourly price is $0.0062 per kW of Reserved Capacity per hour.

Rate Schedule 3006

The Energy Imbalance Service rate is $0.02725 per kWh.

Rate Schedule 3009

The capacity charge for customers taking Firm transmission service is $6.33/MWh (based on the BC Hydro Rate Schedule 1821 Demand rate).

Customers will be billed at the revised rates for December 2004 (invoice sent in January 2005).
Adjustments will appear on customers’ Daily Settlement Reports showing the price change to $0.0062 on transmission purchased in December at the previous maximum price of $0.0063 per kWh.

Another bulletin will be posted in the near future to provide a link to the new rate sheets and information on re-billing customers’ activity back to April 1, 2004.

Please contact Mark Prosperi-Porta at 604 699-7385 for further information.

Regulatory Filing - Capital Plan/Vancouver Island

Posted on December 20 , 4:14 p.m.

BCTC filed today with the BCUC responses to questions raised at pages 27-28 of the Commission's Reasons for Decision with respect to BCTC's Capital Plan.

The responses filed contain information related to the Vancouver Island Transmission Reinforcement Project.

Copies of this filing can be obtained from BCTC's website at http://www.bctc.com/regulatory/applications.shtml

Regulatory Filing - Vancouver Island

Posted on December 17 , 3:22 p.m.

BCTC filed today with the British Columbia Utilities Commission its responses to the Information Request No. 1 from the Commission with respect to the following proceeding:

British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority (“BC Hydro”)
Call for Tenders for Capacity on Vancouver Island (“CFT”)
Review of Electricity Purchase Agreement.

The responses filed contain information related to the status of the Vancouver Island Transmission Reinforcement Project as well as information related to BCTC's contingency plans for Vancouver Island supply.

BCTC OASIS

Posted on December 10 , 7:28 p.m.

BCTC OASIS now restored

TSS Outage Over

Posted on December 10 , 3:14 p.m.

TSS is now back online, processing will resume as normal. We apologize for any inconvenience.

BCTC OASIS is Down

Posted on December 10 , 3:03 p.m.

BCTC OASIS is temporarily down. BCTC realtime scheduler will accept manual transmission requests by phone followed by a fax as per business practice until further notice.

TSS is not Functioning in Pre-schedule

Posted on December 10 , 10:45 a.m.

TSS is not functioning in Pre-schedule. Therefore, backup procedures are now in place until further notice. Please refer to Section 13.4 of the Business Practices for detail. We will post another notice once TSS is back on line. Thank you for your patience.

Extended Windows for Christmas & New Year

Posted on December 6 , 9:31 a.m.

Market Operations is pleased to visually clarify the opening of the extended windows for purchasing transmission over the Christmas and New Year holidays. For further clarification please contact the Preschedule Office @ 604-699-7575.

Standards of Conduct Compliance Agreement and Written Procedures

Posted on November 23 , 12:01 p.m.

Further to BCTC's 22 September 2004 Standards of Conduct application to the British Columbia Utilities Commission, BCTC has filed with the British Columbia Utilities Commission on 19 November 2004 a Standards of Conduct Compliance Agreement, between BCTC and BC Hydro & Power Authority, as well as BCTC's Written Procedures for Standards of Conduct implementation.

Extended Windows for US Holiday

Posted on November 22 , 2:34 p.m.

Market Operations is pleased to visually clarify the opening of the extended windows for purchasing transmission during the US Thanksgiving, Thursday 25 November, 2004.

OATI (eTag) Outage - 30 November 2004

Posted on November 22 , 10:30 a.m.

OATI has planned a 10 minute Network Maintenance outage that will occur on 30 November 2004 starting at 00:10:00 PST. This outage will affect customers' access to the OATI Datacenter and is due to network infrastructure upgrades being performed at OATI. During this 10 minute outage, all customers should follow Section 13.3 of BCTC's Business Practices entitled eTag System Outage. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your cooperation.

Impact Study - BC Hydro 275 MW Import From Alberta (978762)

Posted on November 15 , 3:35 p.m.

A System Impact Study responding to the BC Hydro long-term point to point request OASIS 978762 for 275 MW import from Alberta has been posted.

OASIS Back In Service

Posted on November 15 , 10:04 a.m.

Effective immediately, BCTC's Scheduling Services have resumed normal operation.

OASIS Outage

Posted on November 15 , 9:31 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.

Monthly Service Offerings for April and October 2005 - RESOLVED

Posted on November 10 , 5:22 p.m.

Further to the Bulletin posted on 1st November 2004 @13:33, we have technically resolved the posting issue for Monthly Service Offerings for April and October 2005. Customers should now submit transmission request per normal procedures. We thank you for your patience in resolving this matter.

Interim Redirect Business Practice for Long-Term Confirmed Contracts

Posted on November 2 , 1:43 p.m.

BCTC is currently unable to process redirects to Secondary of long-term transmission contracts to paths that are not discounted. Any path containing a POD within BCHA is a non-discounted path.

Until the problem is resolved and implemented, the following business practice is in effect to Redirect original long-term CONFIRMED transmission contracts to non-discounted paths:

Redirect by submitting a Non-Firm transmission request with the comments "Redirect of OASIS No. XXXXXX".
The amount of the Non-Firm transmission request is the amount to be redirected. Customers will not pay for this Non-Firm transmission.
Customers cannot schedule energy above the remaining available capacity on the original request after the redirect of the original request.
For example, if 50 MW of a 100 MW original request is redirected, the customer can schedule 50 MW on the Non-Firm transmission (as per above steps) and 50 MW on the original request. If a customer schedules on the Non-Firm transmission (as per the above steps) and the original request is above the available remaining capacity, the customer will pay transmission charges on the Non-Firm transmission.
Customer wishing to redirect back to their original transmission must phone BCTC Pre-schedule or Real-time within the applicable transmission scheduling timelines to zero out the Non-Firm transmission request. The customer can then schedule energy on the full amount of the original contract. In this case, customers will not pay for the Non-Firm transmission.

Customers must follow Business Practice Section 7.1 entitled Changing Firm to Secondary and Back when redirecting to Secondary long-term transmission to paths that are discounted.

Monthly Service Offerings for April and October 2005

Posted on November 1 , 1:33 p.m.

Due to a posting problem, the April and October 2005 monthly transmission service offerings indicate an incorrect STOP TIME of 01:00:00 for May 1 and 23:00:00 for October 31, respectively. Customers should submit transmission requests with the STOP TIME of 00:00:00 for May 1 and 00:00:00 for November 1. We will advise you once this issue is resolved and apologize for any inconvenience.

OASIS Outage

Posted on October 31 , 1:35 a.m.

OASIS is down for real-time transmission requests. Call BCTC real-time scheduler (604-473-2723) and follow up with a fax request at 604-473-2738

OASIS Back in Service

Posted on October 31 , 1:09 a.m.

Effective immediately, BCTC's Scheduling Services have resumed normal operation.

Profile Transmission Requests During Time Change

Posted on October 29 , 9:28 a.m.

Due to a limitation on OASIS, during the change from Pacific Daylight Time to Pacific Standard Time customers who submit transmission requests that have (varying) MW profiles which span the time change must submit two transmission requests; one for HE01 and the other for HE02-24.

BCTC back to normal

Posted on October 24 , 6:55 p.m.

BCTC has resumed nomal transmission purchasing procedures as of 6:55. Please use OASIS for all requests.

Amended Business Practices

Posted on October 22 , 4:48 p.m.

Section 13, Backup Procedures for Scheduling System Outages, of BCTC's Business Practices is amended to reflect telephone and fax number changes for the Pre-schedule Office.

OASIS Outage Over

Posted on October 14 , 12:26 p.m.

Effective immediately, BCTC's Scheduling Services have resumed normal operation.

OASIS outage

Posted on October 14 , 12:00 p.m.

OASIS Outage Over

Posted on October 9 , 11:39 a.m.

Effective immediately, BCTC's Scheduling Services have resumed normal operation.

OASIS Outage

Posted on October 9 , 10:21 a.m.

<P>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.</P>

OASIS Outage

Posted on October 9 , 8:38 a.m.

OASIS is not functioning in 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.

Pre-schedule and ATF Telephone and Fax Number Changes

Posted on October 8 , 9:49 a.m.

Effective 07:15 PPT on 21 October 2004, BCTC's Pre-schedule and ATF telephone and fax numbers will change to the following:

Pre-schedule telephone: 604-699-7575
ATF telephone: 604-699-7582
Pre-schedule and ATF fax: 604-696-9886.

OASIS Outage Over

Posted on October 6 , 10:56 a.m.

Effective immediately, BCTC's Scheduling Services have resumed normal operation.

OASIS Outage

Posted on October 6 , 9:55 a.m.

Extended Windows for Long Weekend

Posted on October 4 , 9:31 a.m.

Market Operations is pleased to visually clarify the opening of the extended windows for purchasing transmission over the Columbus Day long weekend.

Offering of Monthly Service Commencing December 1, 2004

Posted on October 1 , 2:26 p.m.

Due to a posting problem, the April 2005 monthly offerings indicated an incorrect STOP TIME of May 1 at 01:00:00. The STOP TIME should read May 1 at 00:00:00

Monthly bidding starting December 1, 2004 onward will be available for purchase on Oct 2 at 00:00:00, 2004. If a request has an end date of April 30, please ensure the STOP TIME is May 1 at 00:00:00.

EAL>BCHA ATC/TTC Postings

Posted on September 29 , 4:25 p.m.

Further to the bulletin posted on 3 September 2004 @ 15:49 soliciting customer comments on our ATC/TTC posting procedure we are pleased to advise customers of several items.

First, the shunt capacitor bank that was damaged by fire in Alberta is anticipated to return to service on 28 February 2005 at 17:00.

Second, effective immediately, for Short-Term Point-to-Point transmission service BCTC will make best efforts to consider adjacent control area outages in our ATC postings. Specifically, we are taking into consideration the Alberta shunt capacitor bank that was damaged by fire and we are adjusting our postings accordingly to mitigate curtailments.

Third, we received the following comments from customers in response to our queries:

Should we continue to post ATC/TTC as we currently do?

We would like BCTC to coordinate with its adjoining areas on a monthly basis to ensure BCTC transmission is not sold when it is known in advance that curtailments will be required. Selling firm monthly, weekly and daily transmission that ends up being curtailed devalues the customers' yearly transmission contracts by causing them to be curtailed pro-rata with shorter term firm contracts.

Adjusting the method to account for long-term intra-Alberta outages would be our preferred course of action. When dealing with the transfer of power to a Mid-C counterparty, the challenge of being curtailed due to intra-BC issues is of sufficient concern. Curtailments to reserved transmission schedules due to intra-Alberta issues can make trading even more complicated, not to mention expensive. I think it makes intuitive sense to have the ATC figure represent actual available transmission capacity and to have the capacity to update it as necessary.

No. We would prefer that the outage (and future significant outages) be factored into the ATC/TTC limits before posting to avoid curtailments. We are more than happy to wait and purchase only ATC posted in real-time, rather than buy transmission pre-schedule only to have it curtailed.

BCTC should not continue to post ATC/TTC as is currently done. ATC/TTC should be confirmed with Alberta and only what is available should be posted.

Our preference would be for BCTC to continue selling transmission how it currently is. This would be the only way that we would be able to do longer term (daily, weekly or anything other than hourly) offpeak transactions with other counterparties during onpeak outages.

We would support a reversal of your procedure on an interim basis in situations of outages/derates that extend past 2 months.

Should we reverse our procedure on an interim or permanent basis? That is, should we implement it for just this outage or whenever there are significant outages in the future?

Coordinating with adjoining control areas in posting usable monthly, weekly and daily ATC should be a permanent solution.

We have no preference as to which HLH should be set to zero, but we would like to see the chosen method applied consistently. If other significant outages occur in the future that impact ATC, we would be amenable to seeing a similar method applied.

We submit that the procedure should be changed on a permanent basis so that the posting reflects the most conservative limits with excess ATC being posted in real-time should it be actually available.

The current procedure should be reversed on a permanent basis. Whenever outages in Alberta affect the ATC/TTC, BCTC's transmission offerings should reflect this.

If we reverse our procedure, which heavy load hours would you like to see derated to zero?

If less than 95% of the transmission capacity is available for monthly, weekly, or daily requests, ATC should not be posted or sold for those durations. Since, as you point out in your notice, most of the HLH are being de-rated we would expect no ATC be posted for durations greater than hourly over that time period.

We would prefer all hours be curtailed in the same manner, using the same procedure. Not only would it be difficult to get consensus from participants on which specific hours to curtail, the ATC posting and limit calculation should not be subject to any "subjective" measures. Factor in the known outage with all hours considered.

Heavy load hours should be derated to zero if there is no ATC/TTC. Whatever is available should be posted.

Thanks to all customers who provided their input.

Standards of Conduct Application

Posted on September 23 , 9:58 a.m.

On September 22, 2004, BCTC filed a new Standards of Conduct Application with the British Columbia Utilities Commission. It will be available for viewing at http://www.bctc.com/regulatory/applications.shtml by September 24, 2004.

Scheduling Services Back to Normal

Posted on September 12 , 11:23 a.m.

Effective immediately, BCTC's Scheduling Services have resumed normal operation.

OASIS Outage

Posted on September 12 , 7:51 a.m.

OASIS outage

Posted on September 11 , 4:09 p.m.

BCTC is currently experiencing problems with ATC calculations in OASIS effective September,11,2004 @ 16:10 Pacific. As a result, if unable to get requested transmission, please use backup procedures for real-time and Pre-schedule until our system is restored. A subsequent bulletin will be posted when normal procedures can be followed.

EAL>BCHA ATC/TTC Postings - Soliciting Customer Comments

Posted on September 3 , 3:49 p.m.

Capacity on the EAL>BCHA path is being limited by system load and equipment problems in Alberta. In July, a shunt capacitor bank in Calgary was damaged by fire and it is not expected to be repaired/replaced before 30 April 2005. This together with the Alberta system going through its summer peak has resulted in TTC being derated to zero on the intertie for the majority of heavy load hours during the week days, thereby eliminating capacity for those hours.

Currently, we upload Firm and Non-Firm ATC/TTC to OASIS up to 13 months, depending on service increment. Then, we adjust the ATC/TTC based on AESO limits as posted on its website. However, since this outage has occurred we seem to be consistently curtailing transmission reservations.

To mitigate this, we can reverse our procedure and take this lengthy outage into consideration when we post ATC/TTC. Thus, we can post zero ATC for the majority of heavy load hours during the week days and adjust that value upwards on a daily basis or more, depending when extended windows occur, if capacity is available.

Therefore, we ask customers to provide their comments to Brenda Ambrosi at BCTC_Grid_Ops@hotmail.com from 16:00 PPT on 3 September until 7:00 PPT on 7 September (due to e-mail outage) and to brenda.ambrosi@bctc.com e-mail address afterwards. Please comment on the following by noon on Friday, 10 September:

Should we continue to post ATC/TTC as we currently do?
Should we reverse our procedure on an interim or permanent basis? That is, should we implement it for just this outage or whenever there are significant outages in the future?
If we reverse our procedure, which heavy load hours would you like to see derated to zero?

Shortly thereafter, we will post another bulletin that will set out customer comments received on this issue and which procedure we will follow.