An examination of the costs and critical characteristics of electric utility distribution system capacity enhancement projects
This report classifies and analyzes the capital and total costs (e.g., income tax, property tax, depreciation, centralized power generation, insurance premiums, and capital financing) associated with 130 electricity distribution system capacity enhancement projects undertaken during 1995-2002 or planned in the 2003-2011 time period by three electric power utilities operating in the Pacific Northwest. The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), in cooperation with participating utilities, has developed a large database of over 3,000 distribution system projects. The database includes brief project descriptions, capital cost estimates, the stated need for each project, and engineering data. The database was augmented by additional technical (e.g., line loss, existing substation capacities, and forecast peak demand for power in the area served by each project), cost (e.g., operations, maintenance, and centralized power generation costs), and financial (e.g., cost of capital, insurance premiums, depreciations, and tax rates) data. Though there are roughly 3,000 projects in the database, the vast majority were not included in this analysis because they either did not clearly enhance capacity or more information was needed, and not available, to adequately conduct the cost analyses. For the 130 projects identified for this analysis, capital cost frequency distributions were constructed, and expressed in terms of dollars per kVA of additional capacity. The capital cost frequency distributions identify how the projects contained within the database are distributed across a broad cost spectrum. Furthermore, the PNNL Energy Cost Analysis Model (ECAM) was used to determine the full costs (e.g., capital, operations and maintenance, property tax, income tax, depreciation, centralized power generation costs, insurance premiums and capital financing) associated with delivering electricity to customers, once again expressed in terms of costs per kVA of additional capacity. The projects were sorted into eight categories (capacitors, load transfer, new feeder, new line, new substation, new transformer, reconductoring, and substation capacity increase) and descriptive statistics (e.g., mean, total cost, number of observations, and standard deviation) were constructed for each project type. Furthermore, statistical analysis has been performed using ordinary least squares regression analysis to identify how various project variables (e.g., project location, the primary customer served by the project, the type of project, the reason for the upgrade, size of the upgrade) impact the unit cost of the project.
- Research Organization:
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-76RL01830
- OSTI ID:
- 884828
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-SA-39782; EO0101010; TRN: US200616%%139
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: IEEE PES Power Systems Conference and Exposition, 2004. Oct. 10-13 2004, 1:517
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
CAPACITORS
CAPITALIZED COST
DEPRECIATION
DISTRIBUTION
ELECTRIC POWER
ELECTRICITY
ENERGY ACCOUNTING
FINANCING
INCOME
INSURANCE
MAINTENANCE
POWER GENERATION
POWER SYSTEMS
REGRESSION ANALYSIS
STATISTICS
electricity distribution system
capacity enhancement projects
capital and total costs
utility data
statistical analysis