Inter-utility trade review

The National Energy Board was requested by the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources to identify possible measures to improve cooperation among Canadian electrical utilities and to enhance access for buyers and sellers of electricity to available transmission capacity through intervening systems for wheeling purposes. To identify measures to improve cooperation, a questionnaire was sent to electric utilities and other interested parties on the present extent and future possibilities for inter-utility cooperation. The questionnaire and its results are presented. It was found that there already exists a significant amount of inter-utility cooperation in Canada. Such cooperation generally involves interchanges of economy energy, non-economic capacity and energy, coordinated operation, resource sharing, maintenance scheduling, emergency supports, etc. There is a very limited degree of integrated generation expansion planning. Typically, these agreements are carried out under interconnection agreements negotiated on a bi-lateral basis. The highest current degree of cooperation exists under the auspices of the Alberta interconnected power system pool. Wheeling is limited and generally restricted to cases where the sender and receiver are the same entity or where power is wheeled to a utility purchasing it from the wheeler's system. 2 figs., 3 tabs