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
35
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)
114.0 Reference: Project Environment
Response:
Information Request (IR) No. 1
Exhibit B-1, Tab 8.0, Section 8.2.3, pp. 128-129
Use of BC Hydro’s MDMS (Meter Data Management System)
“Lowest Possible Cost
Submission Date:
October 5, 2012
Page 279
All three utilities recognized that there were potential cost benefits attributable to
collaboration. Potential cost benefits can be generally categorized in two ways:
Shared Infrastructure: Cost savings and reduced infrastructure requirements may be
achieved when two or more utilities share all or part of the advanced metering
infrastructure. Any shared infrastructure may also result in some increased cost related
to the need to separate the customer data required by each utility and to customize the
shared infrastructure to each utility’s requirements.
Software systems, particularly the MDMS, could potentially be shared. However, an
initial cost analysis showed that any savings that might be achieved with a joint software
license would be offset by complexities related to 1) integrating the MDMS with two
different HESs and two different Customer Information Systems (which is where the bulk
of software costs will be spent) and 2) segregating customer data in a manner that would
ensure customer privacy.”
HES: means Head End System and is the AMI System component that manages the
customer meters and other endpoint devices.
MDMS: means Meter Data Management System and is the component with the AMI
System that manages data transmitted from the meter.
114.1 Please explain further the integration of the MDMS and the HES. Specifically,
explain how the proposed FortisBC HES differs from the existing BC Hydro HES,
including the supplier of the two HES systems and the costs to integrate it with a
MDMS.
FortisBC utilizes enterprise application integration software as the integration platform for
integrating and exchanging service-oriented and message-oriented data between IT systems,
including the HES , MDMS and billing system. FortisBC is not familiar with BC Hydro’s
enterprise service bus, enterprise application integration software, infrastructure and software
configurations and versions. This makes it very difficult to estimate the difference in integration
costs between the FortisBC and BC Hydro IT environments.
As stated in Exhibit B-1, Tab 8.0, Section 8.2.3, “… an initial cost analysis showed that any
savings that might be achieved with a joint software license would be offset by complexities
related to 1) integrating the MDMS with two different HESs and two different Customer