20230915AVU to Staff 1-7.pdf

AVISTA CORPORATION RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

JURISDICTION: IDAHO DATE PREPARED: 09/13/2023 CASE NO: AVU-E-23-07 / AVU-E-23-04 WITNESS: N/A REQUESTER: IPUC RESPONDER: Vern Malensky TYPE: Production Request DEPARTMENT: Electrical Engineering
REQUEST NO.: Staff-001 TELEPHONE: [phone] REQUEST:
Are any of the automated meter reading ("AMR") or AMI system components currently in service forward compatible or upgradable for use in the proposed replacement system? If yes, please provide a description of each component to be reused or upgraded and savings achieved by avoiding the purchase of new components.
RESPONSE: The AMR system went into service in 2005 and has continued to function past its 15-year life expectancy. Although none of the components associated with the existing meter reading solution
are forward compatible or upgradable, the updated solution uses technology that is more cost
effective to implement than replacing the current AMR system. The current solution has encountered equipment failures and some of the components are no longer manufactured or supported. This system needs to be timely replaced (or “refreshed”) to
avoid excessive replacement costs and provide continuing reliable service supporting the Company’s electric and natural gas operations in Idaho. An example of the cost differential can be found by reviewing the number of required field routers
needed to support each solution. The existing AMR system would require replacement of over two
thousand field routers, while the proposed solution, utilizing mesh technology, would require less than two hundred field routers. In addition to having a lower total cost than AMR, AMI technology will also deliver incremental
financial benefits to our Idaho customers expected to exceed $48 million (NPV) over the lifecycle of the project. These areas of benefits include Meter Reading, Remote Service Connectivity, Outage Management, Energy Efficiency, Energy Theft and Unbilled Usage, and Billing Accuracy. (See Staff_PR_003 Attachment A).
Meter Reading - Expected incremental financial benefits to be provided by AMI are based on eliminating the labor and vehicle expenses required for the mobile van currently used for some metering routes in Idaho, recognizing the fact that some mobile reads will be retained for certain natural-gas only areas that simply are too expensive to be converted to a full AMI solution.
Remote Service Connectivity - The remote service switch is a feature of the AMI meter that allows it to be remotely disconnected and reconnected, avoiding what otherwise requires a field visit by an employee to the physical service location. In addition to reducing operating costs for personnel and vehicles, the process of reconnecting service for customers, using advanced metering, is
obviously much more rapid than with physical service calls (especially after hours).

RECEIVED
2023 SEPTEMBER 15, 2023 3:40PM
IDAHO PUBLIC
UTILITIES COMMISSION
Outage Management - AMI meters sense near real-time of whether power is being supplied to an individual customer’s meter. When this service is disrupted, the advanced meter sends an alarm
indicating an outage at the customer’s premises. As a result of outage alarms Avista is able to
respond to outages more quickly on average to reduce outage duration. Additionally, Avista has developed specialized outage management tools and processes, enabled by AMI metering. These tools are improving our outage restoration processes, which results in additional reduced outage duration and avoided financial losses for our customers.

Energy Efficiency - In our experience with AMI metering, the Company has estimated incremental financial value expected for several different areas of customer benefit including conservation voltage reduction (CVR), customer actions to improve energy efficiency based on the availability of interval energy use data and accompanying analytical tools, and behavioral energy efficiency
programs, which rely in part on the load disaggregation, opportunity identification and measurement and verification. Energy Theft and Unbilled Usage - AMI meters are equipped with tamper alarms that alert the
utility in the event a person attempts to circumvent the metering of energy. Additionally, using the
alarm capabilities of AMI metering we can detect loss of phase and voltage irregularities and report these events as they happen in real time reducing financial impacts. Billing Accuracy - Without AMI metering, combined with load disaggregation and other tools,
customer service representatives must respond to customer bill inquires with only a limited ability
to obtain a current reading of the customer’s metered usage, to have the customer’s historical usage normalized to the month, or to analyze any bill trends or usage anomalies. The steps required to provide even a rudimentary answer to a customer’s billing question involves estimation, assumption, and a substantial amount of a customer service representative or billing analyst’s time
to assemble.
1FIGURE 1-1. NET COST OF AMR AND AMI IS REPRESENTED BY THE TOTAL OF CAPITAL AND
INCREMENTAL EXPENSES MINUS THE VALUE OF THE INCREMENTAL FINANCIAL BENEFITS.

AVISTA CORPORATION RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

JURISDICTION: IDAHO DATE PREPARED: 09/13/2023 CASE NO: AVU-E-23-07 / AVU-E-23-04 WITNESS: N/A REQUESTER: IPUC RESPONDER: Vern Malensky TYPE: Production Request DEPARTMENT: Electrical Engineering
REQUEST NO.: Staff-002 TELEPHONE: [phone]
REQUEST:
Please provide an Excel file with formulas intact and enabled that details salvage values by
component for all items that will be taken out of service and replaced. RESPONSE:
Avista has not completed a salvage value analysis for all the components that are being replaced.
The project plans to bid out the disposal and salvaging of any equipment that is taken out of service. Based on our previous experience with disposal fees associated with gas modules and their
internal batteries, we believe these costs substantially offset or exceed any salvage values we
expect to realize from other components.
AVISTA CORPORATION RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

JURISDICTION: IDAHO DATE PREPARED: 09/13/2023 CASE NO: AVU-E-23-07 / AVU-E-23-04 WITNESS: N/A REQUESTER: IPUC RESPONDER: Vern Malensky TYPE: Production Request DEPARTMENT: Electrical Engineering
REQUEST NO.: Staff-003 TELEPHONE: [phone]
REQUEST:
Please provide an Excel file with formulas intact and enabled that supports the Incremental
Lifecycle Values for each Major Area of Benefit shown in Table 4-2 of the Company's Idaho Advance Metering Refresh Project. Application- Exh. A (Status Report) at 26. RESPONSE:
See Staff_PR_003 Attachment A. See also Staff_PR_001.
AVISTA CORPORATION RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

JURISDICTION: IDAHO DATE PREPARED: 09/13/2023 CASE NO: AVU-E-23-07 / AVU-E-23-04 WITNESS: N/A REQUESTER: IPUC RESPONDER: Vern Malensky TYPE: Production Request DEPARTMENT: Electrical Engineering
REQUEST NO.: Staff-004 TELEPHONE: [phone]
REQUEST:
Please provide an Excel file with formulas intact and enabled that supports the Company's
estimated savings of $597,376 for Reduced Customer Calls shown in Table 4-4 of the Company's Idaho Advance Metering Refresh Project. Application- Exh. A (Status Report) at 30. RESPONSE:

See Staff_PR_003 Attachment A, tab “ReducedCustomerCalls.”

AVISTA CORPORATION RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

JURISDICTION: IDAHO DATE PREPARED: 09/13/2023 CASE NO: AVU-E-23-07 / AVU-E-23-04 WITNESS: N/A REQUESTER: IPUC RESPONDER: Vern Malensky TYPE: Production Request DEPARTMENT: Electrical Engineering
REQUEST NO.: Staff-005 TELEPHONE: [phone]
REQUEST:
Please provide an Excel file with formulas intact and enabled that supports the AMI Enabled
Energy Efficiency values for each Area of Benefit (Conservation Voltage Reduction, Customer Energy Efficiency, Behavioral Energy Efficiency) shown in Table 4-5 of the Company's Idaho Advance Metering Refresh Project. Application - Exh. A (Status Report) at 32.
RESPONSE:
See Staff_PR_003 Attachment A, tabs “Conservation Voltage Reduction”, “Customer Energy Efficiency”, and “Behavioral Energy Efficiency.” See also Staff_PR_001.
AVISTA CORPORATION RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

JURISDICTION: IDAHO DATE PREPARED: 09/13/2023 CASE NO: AVU-E-23-07 / AVU-E-23-04 WITNESS: N/A REQUESTER: IPUC RESPONDER: Anna Scarlett TYPE: Production Request DEPARTMENT: Business Transformation
REQUEST NO.: Staff-006 TELEPHONE: [phone]
REQUEST:
Please describe all federal, including Department of Energy ("DOE"), electric AMI funding
opportunities or grants the Company has pursued or been awarded. If no funding or grants have been pursued or been awarded, please explain why not. RESPONSE:

We have not pursued or been awarded federal funding for electric AMI projects through the Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act/Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. We do have two DOE grant applications submitted through the Grid Resilience & Innovation Partnerships (GRIP) program, which we are currently awaiting for notification on. One is for our Wildfire Risk Mitigation
Program and the other is for a Community Grid Platform (digital substation standards). We did
not include AMI in these grant applications.

AVISTA CORPORATION RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

JURISDICTION: IDAHO DATE PREPARED: 09/13/2023 CASE NO: AVU-E-23-07 / AVU-E-23-04 WITNESS: N/A REQUESTER: IPUC RESPONDER: Vern Malensky TYPE: Production Request DEPARTMENT: Electrical Engineering
REQUEST NO.: Staff-007 TELEPHONE: [phone]
REQUEST:
Please quantify reduction in Full Time Equivalent ("FTE"), in an Excel file with formulas intact
and enabled, that will be achieved through implementation of the proposed replacement metering system. Please break down the cost savings by business type (electric and gas) and when they will be recognized.
RESPONSE:
Avista does not expect to see a significant overall reduction, if any, in FTEs. There will be a slight reduction of FTEs in the specific area of Mobile Meter Reading.
See Staff_PR_003 Attachment A, tab “Reduced Mobile Meter Reading” for calculations related
to Mobile Meter Reading. See also Staff_PR_001.