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 67
b) Communications network’s scalability to build out into additional, non-FortisBC, service
areas, with no degradation in service (consistent advanced metering benefits, consistent
provincial reporting); and
c) Communication network devices able to collect data and segregate data from multiple
utility meters (minimize duplicate assets).
By including the ability to provide meter reading services for adjacent utilities within the RFP
process, FortisBC ensured it could evaluate the proposals received against the collaboration
objectives.
Response:
38.1.1 Did this requirement limit any of the technical offers or increase the
proposal costs?
All vendors offered a solution that could read different commodities (water, gas and electricity)
from other utilities. This capability did not increase costs as any additional meters, network
devices or IT interface costs required to extend AMI to other utilities are paid for by those
utilities.
Response:
38.2 FortisBC states that the RFP did not specify the type of meter-to-collector
communications technology, and that all proposals received included RF
communications technology. Would the specifications in the RFP prepared by
FortisBC for such things as WAN specification, AMI communication standards,
collector specifications, etc., have in any way limited or constrained vendors to
only offer RF communications meters?
Although FortisBC cannot say with certainty that the requirements did not eliminate non-RF
communication technologies from being proposed, the Company is confident that the
requirements in the RFP were reasonable, prudent and did not needlessly restrict vendor
proposals. For example, FortisBC required that proposals should support hourly consumption
reads to ensure that time-based rates could be supported. Although older PLC technologies
might be challenged to meet this requirement, FortisBC understands that wired technologies
exist that are perfectly capable of meeting the requirement.