This paper briefly discusses the existing industry structure along with the control philosophy for Load Despatch Functions and the proposed industry structure along with the control philosophy in the deregulated wholesale power markets. It also presents a brief summary of the restructuring of the Electricity Supply Industry being carried out through out the world since early eighties. The recommended Industry Structure in the deregulated power markets is summarized herein below: 1. The vertically integrated Utilities shall be unbundled and corporatised. The distribution shall be horizontally broken down into manageable Discos with separate accountability and privatised for better efficiency in metering, billing and collection. 2. Non-discriminatory open Access to transmission network is a pre-requisite for ensuring competition in wholesale power trading. The wire companies shall remain regulated entities. 3. The system operation functions at the regional/national level shall be with Central Transmission Utility, while State Transmission Utilities shall manage State Load despatch Centres in line with TSO concepts. 4. Transmission Companies should not be permitted to commercially trade power in their area of operation. 5. One power pool in each state may be established and the same may be managed by STUs. 6. REBs can assume the responsibility to operate the Regional Power Exchanges. Since REBs are proposed for managing the Power Exchanges, certain important functions, viz., outage planning, coordination of protection system relay settings and finalisation of automatic under frequency load shedding & islanding schemes, etc., which are crucial for integrated operation of power system, should be transferred to the RLDCs. 7. All the old plants prior to de-licensing shall remain under regulatory control of the Regulatory Commissions to avoid windfall profits to such Generating Plants and all such Generating Plants (State Sector Plants, State IPPs and state's share from the C35ntral Generating Plants and the inter-state IPPs) should supply power to the state power pools only at the regulated price. 8. All other Power Plants, in the Central, State or the Private Sector, which have been constructed in the de-licensing regime, shall be free to supply power to any Discos/Bulk Consumers of their choice by entering into long-term or the short-term agreements with them or trade their power in the spot market through Power Exchanges. 9. The trading shall be recognized as a separate distinct activity and any body can act as power trader after getting a suitable license from the regulator and after fulfilling certain conditions. 10. The conditions in the Indian power sector are not yet ripe for introducing retail competition. The retail market will require development of strong Distribution Automation (DA) system, which is presently at a very nascent stage.
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