Towards Standardization of Deregulated Electricity Market Communications in Nigeria

Abstract

The separation of vertically integrated electric power utility in Nigeria into independent entities has opened up the requirement for information and data exchange among the new entities not only to guarantee the security and reliability of the power network, but also for accounting purposes. However, information exchange in highly heterogeneous computing environment poses a major difficulty due to different applications, databases and data models of these enti- ties. This work presents a Unified Nigerian Electricity Market In- formation Model called UNEMIM to overcome this difficulty. UN- EMIM specifies a uniform way for describing and communicat- ing electricity market data. The UNEMIM object model and XML Schema generated from the model are presented along with ap- plication examples. A unified information model will provide a common language for describing information and data in Nige- ria deregulated electricity market. This will eliminate the require- ment for data mapping from multiple sources thereby overcoming the challenge of an in depth understanding of several data sources from the different stakeholders in the electricity market in Nigeria. the initial take off of the competitive electricity market during the transitional period. The introduction of competition into Nigeria electricity market however brings with it enormous responsibilities from all the stake- holders. One of these responsibilities is the requirement for infor- mation and data interchange. The separation of the vertically in- tegrated PHCN into independent entities makes it mandatory for the different entities to interact and exchange information and data not only for the management and monitoring of system security and reliability, but also for the accounting and settlement purposes (3). The newly created actors in the Nigeria electricity market will therefore need to automate communication with one another. The information and data exchange requirements are well documented in the Grid Code (4), Distribution Code (5), Metering Code (6) and Market Rules (7). The exchange of meter data between the Market Operator (MO) and the other actors such as the Gencos and Dis- cos is an excellent example of these requirements. Information ex- change will be enabled by several applications needed for fulfilling the functions and roles of the actors in the deregulated electricity market environment. These applications are either inherited from the assets of the PHCN or will be newly acquired or developed. Unified data model and standardized data exchange format will therefore play very significant role in the automation of informa- tion exchange for both inter-applications and inter-corporations. It is very inappropriate to align data model to the individual applica- tion or enterprise data model. Such approach will lack uniformity and will only consider functional requirement of the respective ap- plications or corporations. It is only through the concepts of domain objects that a unified, application independent, and consistent data models can be created and maintained (8). Inter-enterprise data ex- change requires common data model and agreed standardized ex- changing format to prevent the development of multiple message models. A seamless integration of market actors' proprietary infor- mation requires a standard way for describing the electricity market entities, their attributes, and relationships. The important role of information exchange in electric power net- work operations led to the adoption of Common Information Model (CIM) as standard to exchange and manage network models by many electricity utilities all over the world (9), (10), (11), (12), (13) and (14). There are also efforts to extend CIM to support electricity market communications (15) and (16). While the CIM standard can be adapted to cater for the exchange of network models in Nige-