Planning for Projects
Grid Upgrade Investment and Review Policy
Transpower and the Electricity Commission have jointly developed a policy – the Grid Upgrade Investment and Review Policy (GUIRP) – which provides greater clarity of roles and process between Transpower and the Electricity Commission in developing grid upgrade proposals for approval. The GUIRP was released publicly in June 2008 as a Commission policy.
We already apply the principles of the GUIRP to our own planning process for individual projects, but are still developing some aspects of the GUIRP that span multiple projects, including the Small Projects Report, Common Assumptions document and Stakeholder Engagement Policy.
Grid Planning Process
Underneath the high-level GUIRP, we use a grid planning process to map the various stages between planning for the future and actually constructing and commissioning new assets on the National Grid. The process includes a mix of generic and project specific considerations or stages for all projects.
Grid Planning Process [142kB]
Investment Tools
Transpower has a number of tools available to increase capacity in its network, including:
- Grid support contracts
- Squeezing capacity out of existing assets by way of:
- thermal upgrades (pdf: 61KB) (i.e. increasing the operating temperature of assets to allow more current to pass)
- reconductoring, (i.e. replacing conductor on lines with larger capacity conductor)
- duplexing (i.e. adding a conductor to the existing conductor for each phase)
- or installing reactive support (like capacitors or static var compensators which are helpful in maintaining voltage stability)
- Building new infrastructure like new lines and substations