In Japan, ten utility companies responsible for secure power supply have been in charge of planning, construction and operation of the power system in its own control area. Their control areas are connected each other by inter-regional interconnectors to help utility companies develop large-scale generation development efficiently and achieve regional coordination, which is obligated by "The Electric Utility Industry Law". As a result, economic efficiency has been improved in keeping with the system reliability.Before the liberalization of the retail market, ten utility companies and some wholesalers had conducted interregional power transactions. Naturally, the reinforcement plan, construction and operation of interconnectors were conducted exclusively by ten utilities.In Japan, the wholesale market has been liberalized since 1995, and the retail market for large and medium commercial and industrial (C&I) sectors has been liberalized since 2000. Since then, new load serving entities called "PPS", which stands for "Power Producer and Supplier", have been participating interregional transactions. To avoid any impedance for the market participants from smoothly expanding their business utilizing the transmission network, the strict "fairness and transparency" is required especially in planning and operation of the interconnector because of the scarcity of the available transmission capacity of the interconnectors, while intra-area congestions are not seen in the control area.Established owing to the amended Electric Utilities Industry Law in 2004, a neutral organization called ESCJ (Electric Power System Council of Japan) is responsible for ensuring the fairness and transparency of the interregional transmission systems. ESCJ is a unique private-sector organization where independent academic experts play a pivotal role in decision making with other stakeholders. The main function of ESCJ is establishment of the grid code called "ESCJ Rule" and surveillance based on the grid code. ESCJ Rule states that reinforcement plan of the interconnector shall be triggered in the following cases:1. Some generation development by a market participant, which may need further transmission capacity of the interconnector,2. Increase in transactions across the interconnector, and3. Needs for further transmission capacity of the interconnector in terms of the reliability. Triggered by some clear criteria in the above cases, ESCJ provides a framework for the collaboration work for reinforcement planning. In the collaboration works, "Committee of Interconnection Development (CID)" which is convened by independent academic experts, is organized and studies
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