New York Investor-Owned Utilities Filed Distribution Service Implementation Plans

The New York investor-owned utilities recently filed their inaugural Distribution Service Implementation Plans on June 30, 2016 as part of NY-REV.

The NY Public Service Commission recognized the need to modernize forecasting and planning and has been explicit in its position that “forecasts should follow a stochastic or probabilistic methodology rather than a deterministic one.” Although utilities are not required to propose what they plan to do to implement this type of analysis until November 1, Nexant’s study for Central Hudson has already implemented the requested stochastic methodology. As part Central Hudson’s DSIP filing for NY-REV, Nexant quantified the potential to avoid or defer T&D infrastructure upgrades with extremely granular data and locational insight. To our knowledge, no other utility to date has implemented a location-specific avoided T&D cost study that relies on probabilistic analysis and quantifies the option value of reducing peak demand.

Nexant’s study of Central Hudson focuses on substation and transmission costs (it does not include circuit feeders) and was designed to meet the following objectives:

• Analyze load patterns, excess capacity, load growth rates, and the magnitude of expected infrastructure investments at a local level
• Develop location-specific forecasts of growth with uncertainty
• Quantify the probability of any need for infrastructure upgrades at specific locations
• Calculate local avoided T&D costs by year and location using probabilistic methods
• Identify beneficial locations for DERs

The study is unique among potential studies in that it

1.    Produces T&D avoided costs estimates at a local level

2.    Uses a bottom-up approach to quantify historical year-to-year growth patterns and the amount of variability in growth

3.    Develops load growth forecasts and avoided cost estimates using probabilistic methods rather than straight-line forecasts