Interruptible Power Study, Egypt

When:                  October to December 2006

Client:                   Econoler International, Quebec City, Canada

Ultimate clients:     United Nations Development Program (UNDP)
                             Egyptian Electricity Holding Company (EEHC)

I was engaged as the expert on this study to help EEHC develop specific arrangements that could be made to deal with the possibility of power shortages in Egypt due to thin generation reserve margins.

The purpose of the study was to outline the contractual and logistical requirements for four types of previously identified interruptible power possibilities, including: (i) cogeneration; (ii) voluntarily reduction of load as requested by power system dispatcher; (iii) shifting of plant regular maintenance to other than peak periods; (iv) shifting plant annual maintenance to other than peak periods. My scope of work included:

• Review of international experience in developing interruptible power contracts
• Development of four contracts, one for each of the above alternatives
• Development of an operational scheme for the Egyptian national control centre to make use of these contracts
• Development of a monitoring as well as an evaluation scheme to evaluate the effectiveness of a pilot program for each of the alternatives
• Provision of the cost of implementing the program, including the annual cost of compensation to companies involved in the program, the cost of metering equipment, and incremental operating and maintenance expenses. In particular, recommendations on compensation arrangements were made based on the EEHC avoided cost of supply.

The above work provided a basis for EEHC to approach candidate customers in Egypt with interruptible power proposals.