BOMA Toronto Building Owners and Managers Association OEB RP 2004 0020 Review of Further Efficiencie

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BOMA Toronto Building Owners and Managers
AssociationOEB RP 2004 - 0020Review of Further
Efficiencies in the Electrical Distribution
SectorFebruary 19, 2004

• Dale Struthers
• OY Enterprise
• Chair BOMA Strategic Energy Committee

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BOMA Member Profile

• Large Retail app. 45 of market BOMA a large
  portion of this.
• Office, also Institutional, Retail
• Portfolios of Buildings, some 100 MW
• Professional Property Managers, often as Agents
  for Owners.
• Supporter of competitive markets, represented at
  IMO.
• Exposed to Wholesale Market Pricing many have
  hedged.
• Customers of a broad cross section of Ontario
  LDCs

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What Large Commercial Consumers want from LDCs

• Reliability
• Fair Distribution Charges
• Accurate Billing
• Access to Billing / Meter data
• Meter Installations
• Fair and reasonable Service Policies
• Customer Service

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Reliability

• Concern over increasing frequency of
  distribution outages,
• equipment inspections ?
• preventive maintenance ?
• SCADA, Facilities Mapping capabilities ?
• work practices ?
• Need a formal record of outage events and causes,
  to allow benchmarking.
• Note that some LDCs provide complete outage
  history on their web page.

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• Some differences possibly due to rate structure
  discontinuities.
• Also, considerable variation in Loss Factors.

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Billing Challenges

• Huge challenges in becoming Retailer Billing
  compliant some LDCs still not capable.
• May 2002 cutover many LDCs did not achieve May
  1 cutover, resulting in 000s impact for some
  commercial customers.
• Problems with billing accuracy, late bills,
  rebate calculations, designated customer ID.

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Customer Billing and Meter Data (and NSLS)

• Essential for bill verification, commodity
  contract reconciliation, energy usage
  monitoring.
• LDC Responses Ranged from
• Not available
• Available at a cost
• Available, but long delays (up to ½ year).
• Available by manual request, prompt attention
• Web enabled systems.
• LDCs have generally progressed over time in
  this regard.

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Interval Meter Installation Requests

• mid sized accounts ( eg. 500kW) to avail
  themselves of preferred pricing / contract
  options.
• LDC Reponses ranged from
• A) cannot comply
• B) Bureaucratic procedures, long delays, high
  costs
• C) Defined procedure, reasonable cost (2500),
  acceptable timelines.
• Most (not all) LDCs have progressed to C over
  time.

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Service Conditions

• Range from
• Detailed Conditions of Service, fair and
  reasonable
• Generic Conditions of Service, too much room for
  interpretation.
• Customer hostile Conditions of Service
  suggesting abuse of monopoly privilege.

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BIGGER generally not better!

• While recognizing concept of minimum efficient
  scale our experience has been that best
  practices and lowest costs can often be found in
  the 30,000 customer LDC.
• The largest LDCs have generally been most
  challenged to fulfill obligations of the new
  marketplace and have not demonstrated economies
  of scale.

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Are further efficiencies available? - YES How can
they be achieved?

• Code Compliance, at a minimum.
• Performance Metrics (costs, reliability,
  customer service)
• Outsourcing of Functions where appropriate eg.
  meter shop, billing, other admin functions.
• Consolidation where justified, NOT for
  theoretical economies of scale.
• Requires
• Progressive Management, Good Governance, Fiscal
  Prudence to embrace the challenges ahead
• ie. DSM, DR, Dist. Generation, Default Supply,
  Retail Choice