Quality and security of supply

The most important dimension of quality and security of supply is reliability and reliability is a measure of the ability of the energy system continuously to meet the customer demand

In an unbundled energy industry, the responsibility for providing reliable energy supply is distributed amongst a number of players. Production companies operate in a market environment providing capacity according to market arrangements. Networks are regulated and reliability requirements are imposed by network codes, industry licenses, performance standards and quality incentive schemes. Sometimes regulators design supplementary market-based incentives for producers to encourage the provision of existing and new capacity.

Quality of supply of energy networks is characterized by two additional elements: product quality (voltage quality and gas specification) and commercial quality. Product quality relates to technical characteristics of electricity and gas. Usually there are national or regional technical standards for product quality. Commercial quality measures the quality of services provided by network operators to customers in terms billing, meter readings, responding to complaints etc. Commercial quality is usually regulated by performance standards imposed by national regulators.

DNV possesses a unique brand of technical and economic expertise and is one of the leading international advisors on all issues relating to quality of supply. We help companies in production, network and supply companies as well regulators establish and implement sound strategies for quality of supply. Our services cover various aspects of quality of supply such as:

• quality definition and quality measurement
• design of network performance standards for product quality, commercial quality and reliability
• regulatory incentives to encourage new production capacity
• modeling of relationships and quality
• design of quality incentive schemes
• effective benchmarking of quality performance.