Bilateral market and open access
A generator and a bulk power consumer contract directly, at a price they agree between themselves. The Authority does not fix it, approve it or publish it.
Agree
Price, term, quantum, delivery point, indexation and security are yours to settle. The price may be indexed to a currency, a commodity or any reference you choose.
File
Within thirty days of execution, in Form M-1, with a copy of the contract and the filing fee. The obligation rests on the seller.
Supply
The contract takes effect according to its own terms. No approval of the Authority is required, and filing does not postpone it.
Filing is recording, not approval
There is no tariff petition and no hearing on the price agreed in a bilateral contract. Acceptance of a filing is not an approval of its commercial terms, nor a representation as to its validity.
What appears on the public register, and what does not
Entered and published
- Names of the seller and the buyer
- Date of the contract and date of filing
- Term of the contract
- Contracted capacity in megawatts
- Points of injection and of drawal
- The instrument under which the seller sells
Never published or disclosed
- The price, and the formula by which it is computed
- Any indexation or escalation
- Billing and payment terms
- Payment security arrangements
- Liability, default and termination terms
- Any other commercial term
Where the Authority must state a reason which would disclose a commercial term, it records that reason separately and does not publish it.
Wind, sold under one contract
A turbine and a single buyer at the other end of a dedicated line. The price, the term and the security are settled between the two of them. The contract is filed within thirty days; the Authority records it and never publishes the price.
Open access
A network licensee must provide access to its system for the carriage of power sold under a bilateral contract, on terms no less favourable than it applies to its own supply business.
Applying
Form M-2 to the network licensee, copy to the Registrar. It must acknowledge within seven days and decide within thirty days of a complete request.
Refusal
Only for want of capacity, or because carriage would be unsafe or technically infeasible. In writing, with the load flow data, and stating what augmentation would cure it, at what cost and in what time.
The queue
Requests are dealt with in the order received, in a register the licensee publishes. A request is not displaced by a later one, and released capacity is offered in order.
Charges
Computed on a published methodology, filed with the Authority, and not discriminating between users or against a user in favour of the licensee’s own supply business. Nothing unpublished may be charged.
If access is refused or delayed
Refer the matter to the Authority. It decides after hearing the network licensee, and may direct that access be granted on such terms as it considers just.
Reopening a contract
The Authority will not reopen, revise or set aside a bilateral supply contract except on three grounds, and no others.
- That the contract is a fraud upon the Act, is a sham, or was made to conceal a supply which is not permitted.
- That it is an abuse of a dominant position, or the product of collusion between undertakings.
- That it contravenes a provision of the Act or of a regulatory instrument.
Protections
No contract is reopened without notice to both parties, an opportunity of being heard, and an order recording reasons. An order operates prospectively only and does not affect a payment already made or a right already accrued. The Authority must have regard to the interest of any lender who advanced money on the faith of the contract.