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 38
In other words, future feeder rebalancing work does not represent incremental effort that is
required or results from the AMI Project. Instead, AMI meters will offer an additional source of
data to be used in future modelling exercises. Until actual data is received from the AMI system,
it is unknown to what extent the additional data provided by the system will improve existing
system models. Thus, FortisBC is unable to provide an estimate at this time of the incremental
improvement that the additional AMI data will provide to these future rebalancing projects.
Response:
23.1.1 Provide the cost of reconnecting a single phase transformer.
FortisBC interprets this question as requesting the cost of reconnecting a single phase
transformer from one phase to another in order to improve the feeder load balance. In actuality,
feeder rebalancing is never carried out by reconnecting individual distribution transformers. This
is because the amount of load on an individual single-phase distribution transformer is far too
small to have any significant impact on the overall feeder load balance. Instead, load
rebalancing is conducted by reconnecting entire feeder segments (laterals) from one phase to
another. This allows tens or hundreds of downstream distribution transformers to be
simultaneous relocated from one phase to another. As discussed in the response to BCUC IR1
Q23.1, FortisBC already carries out periodic feeder rebalancing projects. In 2011, approximately
$97,000 was expended to reconnect 74 distribution segments (representing approximately 7
MW of load transfers) in the Okanagan portion of the FortisBC service territory. Thus, the cost of
reconnecting an individual distribution segment/lateral is approximately $1,300.
Response:
23.2 Provide an estimate of the number of transformers that may have to be
reconnected.
As described in the responses to BCUC IR1 Q23.1 and Q23.1.1, FortisBC already conducts
periodic feeder rebalancing projects. This work does not entail reconnecting individual
distribution transformers, but rather entire feeder segments. The additional data provided by the
AMI system will not necessarily result in additional feeder rebalancing effort. Rather, the data
provided by the AMI meters will simply offer an additional source of data to be used in future
modelling exercises and the resulting feeder rebalancing projects.