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
Submission Date:
October 5, 2012
Page 273
highly dependent on the magnitude and “firmness” of the customer response to those new rate
signals. Given the timing of the AMI Project deployment and the implementation of new rate
designs beyond that, there would not be any impact on the timing of growth capital projects
earlier than approximately 2017.
Response:
111.2.3 Does FortisBC consider that any of these investments could
reasonably be avoided through other residential demand side
mechanisms, such as ripple control/load control programs or
distributed generation? Please explain why or why not.
In general, it is plausible that customer demand reductions resulting from load control (demand
response) or distributed generation could result in the deferral of some load-growth driven
projects. However, the potential impact is highly dependent on the customer uptake of these
new technologies. FortisBC would have to determine the amount and “firmness” of the load
available for shedding before it could be dependably considered as a method to reduce
customer peak load. Given the timing of the AMI Project deployment (which is necessary to
support wide-scale implementation of these technologies), there would not be any impact on the
timing of growth capital projects earlier than approximately 2016.
Response:
111.3 Does FortisBC consider that a residential TOU/CPP rate which recovers a
disproportionate share of sunk network costs (for example, 100 percent or 75
percent) during peak periods could be a viable option to encourage residential
customers to shift consumption to off-peak periods and so reduce incremental
network costs? Please explain why or why not.
A reduction in peak period energy use could result in a drop in peak demand. TOU rates
designed such that the price differential is sufficient to cause customers to shift consumption
into non-peak periods would result in a drop in peak energy use. Collecting demand-related
costs predominantly or entirely during the peak periods would be one such method of creating
the differential.