FortisBC Inc. (FortisBC) Application for a Certificate of Public ...

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Response:
FortisBC Inc. (FortisBC or the Company)
Application for a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity
for the Advanced Metering Infrastructure Project
Response to British Columbia Utilities Commission (BCUC or the Commission)
Information Request (IR) No. 1
Submission Date:
October 5, 2012
Page 125
55.2 Please explain if the licensing fees are paid on an annual basis, and if they cover
maintenance and upgrades automatically provided by the vendors.
Licensing fees are paid on an annual basis. The costs in Table 5.1.b from the Application
include maintenance, updates and upgrades associated with each agreement.
Response:
55.3 Please explain further the Measurement Canada compliance capital, including
the impact of the change in the standards for electro-mechanical meters and why
there would not be a more pronounced peak in the savings by year. Please
provide the number of meters that relates to the dollar amounts in each year from
2013 to 2032.
The Measurement Canada compliance capital line item refers to the cost to replace FortisBC’s
electro-mechanical and small-batch digital meter fleet, based on an accelerated end of life
resulting from the new Measurement Canada SS-06 regulations. These numbers do not include
the cost of the compliance sampling activities. The costs in each year are directly correlated to
the number of meters having their seals expire in a given year. The quantity of expirations in
each year was estimated by a model that is described in the response to BCUC IR1 Q5.1. In
practice, it is possible that FortisBC would have applied to replace the meters more quickly than
the model indicates if customers concerns arose about the accuracy of electromechanical
meters.
More pronounced peaks are due to increased meter seal expirations in a given year due to
large lot sizes or several large groups expiring together.
The following table outlines the predicted number of electro-mechanical and small-batch digital
meter replacements between 2014 and 2034.