As the proportion of green electricity increases, how to ensure the stability of the grid becomes crucial. Taipower announced today (June 17) that in order to ensure the safety and stability of the grid, Taipower plans to launch the "Ancillary Service and Reserve Trading Pilot Platform" and has held a public briefing for the "Ancillary Service Trading Pilot Market" today to explain the implementation and operation of the Platform and hear opinions from all parties. Taipower stated that in the past, Taipower dispatched traditional large-scale units to maintain the stability of the grid. In the future, through the Pilot Platform, self-use power generation equipment operators, demand response providers, and energy storage equipment owners will bid against each other to provide the ancillary services needed for stabilizing the power market, allowing private energy resources to contribute their parts to the stabilization of the grid, and strengthening the steady progress of Taiwan towards the goal of green energy transformation.
Taipower mentioned that the Electricity Act passed by the Legislative Yuan in 2017 requires the establishment of an electricity trading platform. To accumulate experiences, the "Ancillary Services and Reserve Trading Pilot Platform" was promoted first. In addition, the Electricity Act also specifies the "ancillary service" as a measure to "ensure the safety and stability of the power system". To comply with Taiwan's energy transformation policy and increase the proportion of renewable energy, the development of ancillary service trading has become an urgent task for Taiwan.
Taipower further explained that the Ministry of Economic Affairs has announced on May 12, 2020 the "Promotion Guideline for Ancillary Services and Reserve Trading Pilot Platform". It is expected that the "Day-Ahead (One-Day-ahead) Ancillary Service Market" will be launched in Q1 of next year, while the "Reserve Market" is scheduled to be launched at the end of next year. Today’s public briefing focused on the operation of the "Day-Ahead Ancillary Service Market". To allow more people to understand the new system, the briefing was broadcasted live online and online question session was provided. After the briefing, the questions and suggestions from all parties will be clearly revealed on the website, and reported to the regulatory authority of the electricity industry, serving as the references for subsequent revisions of the promotion measures and the development the pilot platform in Taiwan.
Taipower stated that according to the "Promotion Guideline of the Pilot Platform", private power resources that can participate in the "Day-Ahead Ancillary Service Market" include power generation operator, self-use power generation equipment operators, demand response providers, and energy storage system owners who collaborate with other suppliers; however, they do not include those who have signed electricity purchase and sale contracts with Taipower. In order for these participants to become the new force for stabilizing the grid, besides completing the registration process, they must be able to accept instructions from the dispatching station and execute them immediately. Therefore, they must receive tests from Taipower to verify their communication and execution capabilities. In other words, after these private power resources become the ancillary service providers, they are regarded as dispatchable virtual units, which can be dispatched at any time to maintain grid stability.
Taipower further pointed out that the "Day-Ahead Ancillary Service Market" currently has three ancillary service trading items, including "Regulation Reserve", "Spinning Reserve", and "Supplemental Reserve". Among them, the "Regulation Reserve" needs to correct the system frequency deviation instantly, resulting in the shortest response time which ranges from 1 second to 1 minute. However, the duration is also shorter. The "Supplemental Reserve" on the other hand is to ensure that the system can deal with accidents when a large amount of power is lost for its units. Therefore, the response time is not required to be too fast; however, the duration needs to be longer. The characteristics of the "Spinning Reserve" are somewhere in between the two. Taipower also pointed out that considering the large differences in the operating characteristics of various power resources, it is recommended to invest in different trading items. For example, energy storage equipment operators are recommended to invest in Regulation Reserve ancillary services, while self-use power generation equipment operators are recommended to invest in Spinning Reserve and Supplemental Reserve ancillary services. However, the operators can choose the most appropriate trading items for investment of their own free will.
Taipower pointed out that in order to successfully promote the "Trading Pilot Platform", Taipower began to promote the "Provisional Mechanism for the Engagement of Non-Traditional Units in Spinning Reserve Ancillary Services" in October 2019, accumulating experiences for the promotion of the Pilot Platform. This Provisional Mechanism introduces the distributed resources of non-traditional units, including demand response, energy storage facilities, and self-use power generation equipment, to effectively increase the reserve for the grid. In April of this year (2020), the first trading of ancillary services was completed, commencing the development of auxiliary services in Taiwan. To express gratitude to the operators who have involved in ancillary services, Taipower also praised these operators before the public briefing today.
Taipower further pointed out that these operators include the first user-based participant- Changhua Chemical Fiber Plant of Lealea Enterprise Co., Ltd., and the first megawatt-level grid-connected energy storage system- Yong-An Energy Storage System of Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), and the representative of the users- Enel X Taiwan Co., Ltd. Taipower thanked these operators for taking the lead in the involvement of the Pilot Platform, providing opportunities for the operation of the Provisional Mechanism and materials for the subsequent review of the its effectiveness, and allowing the operation of the Trading Pilot Platform to be more precise and flawless.
Spokesperson：Vice President, Zao-Hua Xu
Tel：(02)2366-6271/0937-730-598
E-mail：u787200@taipower.com.tw
Contact Person：Director of Department of System Operations, Jin-Zhong Wu
Tel：(02)2366-6600/0910-192-766
Email：u850899@taipower.com.tw