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

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
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
The estimate was provided to FortisBC as a written estimate.
Response:
Submission Date:
October 5, 2012
Page 248
106.5 How does this estimate compare on a unit cost basis with the actual costs
experienced by Fortis Alberta in its roll-out of PLC based meters?
The $126 million dollar FortisAlberta AMI expenditure that covers 470,000 customers results in
a cost of approximately $268 per customer.
This compares to the $47.7 million expense proposed by FortisBC covering 115,000 customers,
or approximately $415 per customer.
This cost is not directly comparable to the FortisBC expenditure for several reasons, including
the fact that no costs related to HES or MDMS servers or software, provincial sales tax,
regulatory process, contingency allowance, remote disconnects, theft detection metering or
customer portal were incurred by FortisAlberta. These costs total approximately $11.4 million in
the FortisBC AMI project.
If FortisBC excludes those costs from its AMI project, the capital cost drops to approximately
$36.3 million or $316 per customer. The bandwidth available with the FortisBC RF system at
this expenditure level exceeds that available with the FortisAlberta PLC system. This allows
hourly consumption data to be collected system-wide, for example, which challenges the
FortisAlberta PLC system as described in the response to BCUC IR1 Q113.1.1.
107.0 Reference: Future Benefits
Exhibit B-1, Tab 6.0, Section 6.5, p. 103;
Future Conservation Rate Structures -
TOU Customer Response Assumptions
FortisBC states on page 103 of the Application:
“AMI allows FortisBC to remotely and economically apply time-varying rate structures to
selected meters dispersed throughout the Company’s service territory. ... FortisBC has
estimated, using data from its Future Program Study (by Navigant) and the BC
Wholesale Market costs for energy an capacity (as presented in the Company’s 2012