Gas (Amendment) Act, 2000

Method by which Commission shall select persons under procedure referred to in section 2 (3)(a)

3.—(1) In this section—

“applicant” and “application” mean, respectively, the applicant and the application referred to in section 2 (10);

“commissioning date” means, in relation to an application, the date estimated by the Commission as being the date referred to in subsection (3)(b) by which the planned generating station to which the application relates will become commissioned;

“earliest commissioning date” means the commissioning date that falls the earliest from the time that the Commission makes the selection referred to in section 2 (3)(a);

“planned generating station” means, in relation to an applicant, the generating station in relation to which the applicant's relevant rights, if the applicant is selected, are to be exercised and cognate expressions shall be construed accordingly;

“rated generating capacity” means, in relation to a planned generating station, the capacity specified in the relevant application as being the station's rated generating capacity.

(2) For the purposes of this section a planned generating station shall be regarded as having become commissioned when the following conditions are satisfied in relation to it—

(a) the station is connected—

(i) to the natural gas network and is able to receive a supply of natural gas therefrom, and

(ii) to the transmission or distribution system,

(b) the station—

(i) operates reliably to its rated generating capacity,

(ii) complies with the requirements of the grid code specified in the regulations, and

(iii) is capable of sending out an amount of electricity, up to its rated generating capacity, to the transmission or distribution system,

(c) if the applicant concerned is not the person who has constructed the station, the construction works in respect of the station have been completed in accordance with the construction contract concerned and the applicant has taken possession of those construction works.

(3) Regulations shall specify that the Commission shall make the selection by the following method, that is to say, by—

(a) evaluating each of the applications,

(b) estimating the respective dates by which it considers each of the applicants' planned generating stations will become commissioned,

(c) ranking the applications in the following order of precedence, that is to say, the application that has the earliest commissioning date shall be ranked first, the application that has the next earliest commissioning date shall be ranked second and so on,

(d) making such alterations in that order of precedence (if any) as are necessary by virtue of the provisions of the regulations referred to in section 4 ,

and, accordingly, selecting as the persons who shall each have relevant rights the person whose application ranks first in that order of precedence (being that order with such alterations (if any) as are made to it as aforesaid) and such of the other applicants, according as his or her application is ranked in that order of precedence, as—

(i) the total available capacity, and

(ii) the provision of the regulations referred to in section 4 (d) and any determination made by the Commission thereunder,

allow.