Overview

Siemens EMMS (Spectrum Power) is a powerful and scalable EMMS solution that has been in operation at the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) since 2009, operating the majority of California’s high-voltage wholesale power grid. Spectrum Power manages 55,000 megawatts of generating capacity from more than 1,400 power plant units connected to 25,526 circuit miles of transmission lines serving the electricity needs of 30 million customers.

In 2014, Siemens was awarded the contract to replace the incumbent ABB Energy Market Management System (EMMS) for the Philippine Electricity Market Corporation (PEMC, the market operator of the Philippines) with their turnkey EMMS solution. With PSC’s reputation as a leading EMMS integrator, PSC were awarded the role of system integrator for the project to assist Siemens primarily in the formulation and testing of Factor Acceptance Testing test books.

Over the course of 12 months, three PSC market systems specialists worked alongside both Siemens and PEMC to ensure a quality EMMS was delivered on-site to PEMC.

PSC Services

Specific aspects of the project performed by PSC included:

• Attended and actively participated in the kick-off workshop between Siemens and PEMC.
• CSV to CIM network model conversion development.
• Training and familiarisation of the Siemens EMMS in preparation for Factory Acceptance Testing (FAT).
• Test Book planning and development for FAT including books for complex EMMS calculations (e.g. Market Dispatch Optimisation Model, Financial Transmission Rights, Post Market Run Calculations).
• Performed pre-FAT and FAT on complex MMS calculations and other MMS features (e.g. Compliance Monitoring, Market Participant Interface).

Challenges

Geography was the biggest challenge with the end-client being in the Philippines (Manilla), the MMS vendor in the US (Minneapolis), and PSC resourcing split between the US (San Francisco) and Australia (Perth). This was overcome with PSC resourcing spending significant amounts of time on-site at Siemens factory in Minneapolis, and working remotely between visits, along with effective communication between the 3 parties.

Outcome

The Spectrum Power Solution Factory Acceptance Testing and integration tasks performed by PSC were completed on time and on-budget building PSC’s reputation as a leading market systems provider in the Asia Pacific region.