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
33
34
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 262
108.1.1 By what year does FortisBC consider that the generation capacity
gap could be economically addressed through the introduction of
residential TOU rates?
Please see the response to BCUC IR1 Q108.1.
Response:
108.1.2 Is the generation capacity gap primarily seasonal (i.e., between
months) rather than within day? Please explain why or why not.
Overall capacity requirements change with the season, but within the season they change by
the day in response to the weather and unplanned outages. Likewise, they change within the
day by the time of day in response to general customer load patterns. For planning purposes
like the 2012 ISP or the AMI application, the capacity gaps are calculated based on monthly
expected generation capacity and forecast demands. However, even if a gap is shown, that will
most likely only be for a few hours of the month it is shown for. The actual size of the gap will
depend on the weather and any generation outages the Company may be experiencing and
therefore any actual gaps may be larger or smaller than expected.
Response:
108.1.2.1 Please confirm that seasonal rates do not require AMI.
Seasonal rates do not “require” AMI, although a seasonal rate could be challenging to
implement with manual meter reading. If all customers were on the rate, it would require
significant additional resources to read all the meters in a short duration at the time of a
seasonal rate change. (Currently, the manual meter reading capacity is approximately 13,500
meters per week, so it would require roughly nine times more meter readers to obtain a
seasonal read from 115,000 customers in a week.)
Proration of bills would be required for approximately 80 percent of customers even if the
seasonal reads occurred over five days (since presumably only one day of the five would be the
date of the seasonal change). In the experience of FortisBC, particularly with respect to the
Residential Conservation Rate, customers prefer not to have pro-rated bills.