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

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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
• Meter Data Management System (MDMS)
• Wide-area (wireless) communications networks
Submission Date:
October 5, 2012
Page 26
Thus, these components are included in the AMI Project forecast of $47.7 million with an inservice
date of 2015.
FortisBC would also like to reiterate that the table items marked with asterisks are either fully or
partially deployed at FortisBC. Thus, the year of implementation and forecast cost is not
applicable to the following projects:
• Automated Vehicle Location (AVL)
• Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS)
• Cyber-security infrastructure
• Dispatch system
• Fibre-optic communications networks
• Phasor Measurement Units (PMU)
• Real-time transformer monitoring
• Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA)
• Substation Automation
For the remaining items, FortisBC would like to reiterate that the components listed in the table
do not typically represent stand-alone “projects”. In many cases they are actually technology
sectors or initiatives and would be driven based on the uptake levels of customer-driven
projects. For example, Distributed Generation and Electric Vehicle Integration will be driven by
customer adoption rates. As well, these components will likely ramp up over a long period of
time. Thus, there is no “Year Planned” or “Forecasted Cost” that can be provided for these
components. In some cases, there is either no identified need for the project (such as for
Demand Response control, Work Management System, or Real-time transmission line rating) or
the technology is simply not applicable to FortisBC’s operation (Energy Management System).
For all of the above reasons, there is little information at this time to provide with respect to the
forecast cost and in-service date for many components. Presently, only the Outage
Management System and Conservation Voltage Reduction components have been explored in
some detail (and are discussed further in Section 6 - “Future Benefits”). Given all of the above,
FortisBC has attempted to provide the requested data where possible.