The Principles for Shaping, Separating and Describing the Reliability and Safety Requirements in the Electric Power Industry

Abstract

The principles for shaping, separating and describing the reliability and safety requirements in the electric power industry of Russia are presented, and recommendations on setting up a reliability and safety assurance system in the industry are worked out. The opinions of the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation (Minenergo of Russia) and of various electric power industry entities regarding the description of these requirements are outlined. A conflict of interests between the liberal nature of the electricity market and the mandatory requirements for managing the production, transmission, distribution, and consumption of electric energy arose after the electric power industry of Russia had been reformed. In this connection, the Minenergo of Russia was charged with the task to elaborate principles for shaping, separating and describing the reliability and safety requirements in the electric power industry. The article outlines different viewpoints on this problem. According to the standpoints of the Federal Agency for Technical Regulation and Metrology and the System Operator in regard of this problem, those who are going to develop legal regulatory acts stipulating mandatory requirements for reliability and safety in the electric power industry shall use references to the relevant national standards. In the opinion of the Russian Hydro Power Generating Company (RusGidro), the reliability requirements are inseparable from the safety requirements. The Federal Environmental, Industrial and Nuclear Supervision Service of Russia (Rostekhnadzor) should supervise safety in the electric power industry, and the Minenergo of Russia should regulate the reliability of electric power industry operation through elaborating the relevant industry-branch legal regulatory acts with establishing mandatory reliability requirements for the electric power industry. The standpoint maintained by electric power producers (generating companies) rests on the idea that the reliability should be estimated in quantitative terms, and that the consumers shall pay for it. The relevant payment mechanisms are already available, for example, in the Market of System Services.According to the standpoint of the Russian Electrical Network Company (Rosseti), it is inexpedient to separate the reliability and safety requirements posed to the electric power facilities and consumers. Otherwise, a need would arise to set out the same requirements twice in legal regulatory documents. In addition, the reliability and safety requirements shall not be categorized into normative and optional ones, because the optional requirements will not be complied with. The reliability and safety requirements posed to different entities of electric power industry should be different depending on the kind of activities performed by the entities. The consumers shall maintain the quality of electrical energy and bear responsibility for degrading it. The manufacturers of high-voltage electrical equipment shall design it in compliance with the requirements of relevant national standards. Nothing has changed for them even though the national standards had become optional. The designers of electric power systems are guided by the Methodical recommendations for elaborating power system development projects. These guidelines should now be brought to the level of a national standard.