Vermont System Planning Committee
Forecasting Committee Meeting Notes
June 20, 2014
9:30-12:30
Location:
VPPSA – Waterbury, VT
Dial in info:
Toll-free: 1-877-918-1573
Passcode: 3102435
In attendance:
Mike Leach (BED)
Tom Lyle (BED)
TJ Poor (DPS)
John Woodward (DPS) - phone
Nathan Vandal (Green Peak Solar)
Carole Hakstian (VEIC)
Deena Frankel (VELCO) - phone
Hantz Presume (VELCO) - phone
Jared Kaplan (VPPSA)
Bill Powell (WEC) - phone
(Task to-do’s by member in Red)
Review prior meeting notes.

No Committee members commented on meeting notes from last meeting. They will be posted
by Deena to the VSPC website. If any comments on the notes, they will be removed from the
website and modified as necessary.
Load forecasting discussion

What data is available for Itron?
o EVT forecast of savings (Carole has already sent much info to Itron about this)
 Residential Sector – Program Screening Tool (PST) has every single measure
analyzed – more output tables are available at the end use level (where load
shapes are available).
 LED lighting and CFL savings and measure count, by year. Carole will
send this to Load Forecast Committee (LFC)
 Heat pump penetrations – what EVT expects to rebate (not what will
see in the market). Clarification that heat pump water heaters are NOT
included in numbers (Carole will send this to LFC). Any member should
provide heat pump load shape data if available.
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
o
o
Does Itron need end use level data? Savings by end use has already
been provided.
 Commercial Sector - PST is at end use level. by end use has already been
provided. Savings by technology – don’t have unit count.
 Carole will clarify how buy-downs are treated in lighting and how the
savings are allocated between sectors. This could have important
effects on expected load shapes.
BED forecast of savings at end use level – Tom L will provide
AMI data availability
 BED gave some data on energy load shapes – from interval forecast. Do any of
the other utilities have this? Useful for Itron to have this? Question for Itron –
Are you looking for interval data? What level interval data are you looking for?
How will it be used?

Vermont is expected to update codes every three years. How to treat this in the forecast? LFC
determined that this is too small of a variable to worry about for this forecast, largely captured
in the AEO. That said, it was noted that the commercial code will require EV charging stations
for buildings with parking lots of a certain size.

Discussion on economic forecast
o John provided a summary of discussions with state economic forecasters. The NEEP
forecast changes assumptions from the national aggregate to make VT-specific.
o It will be important to determine how influential the macro economic variables in the
forecast are, in order to determine whether it is worthwhile making them VT-specific.
These variables include
 Personal income –
 Number of households
 Overall households
 GDP – manufacturing output
 Employment
 Manufacturing specific
o Timing – Hantz noted that sooner the better for these variables – within a couple of
weeks in order to make it into the preliminary forecast.
o GMP, for its IRP forecast, decided to cap GDP recovery.
o Did Itron consider any of the less “traditional” drivers? For example, was there better
correlation with construction earnings? Why or why not?

Are changes to AEO from 2013 to 2014 appropriate for use in Vermont? The LFC determined
that it did not have enough detail to answer this question.
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
Are Lighting Technology Saturations appropriate? Itron should provide a timeline for the
proposed project (copied below from previous notes) so the LFC can know what input to provide
and when.
o Itron will build out a technology spreadsheet, describing how the saturations of
different technologies flow through to the end use intensity. This project will be
completed over the summer. Need information (if different than what was in the Itron
presentation) on what is the distribution of the market now, and what is expected in VT
in the future. Currently, the base of the saturation shares is regional market share data.

Other end use saturation for the committee to investigate: electric heat, water heating.
o Jared will investigate real estate associations to see if they have any information on
these end uses. Carole will investigate Census data (check Center for rural studies).

With regard to solar NM and other DG penetrations in forecast:
o Itron had committed to provide their solar saturation model and data re: size and
system of expected penetrations. LFC will provide feedback.
o Nathaniel will provide 8760 forecast for solar – fixed, and single/dual axis trackers. Also
provide any information on increased capacity factors – systems now are starting to
move to add more panels to increase from 14% up to 18%.
o TJ will provide expectations for solar standard offer.

A discussion about the accuracy of the VT load forecast.
o A question was raised: Does the actual load compare with the VT load forecast
developed a few years ago? In other words, how accurate are the load forecasts?
Data sharing


Goal of this effort is to allow LFC members and others to be more informed about what is going
on with regard to actual system impacts, and allow for better quality input into forecasting
process.
Things to share include:
o Historical rate revenue by rate class
o Historical rates
o Loads
o Statewide sales
o Population
o History of energy code updates
o Economic data
o Solar DG: total capacity, solar impacts
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
Mike will provide Deena with a couple of files, Deena will post to the website.
Carole/Deena/Mike L. will review and provide feedback.
Forecasting subcommittee future leadership – tabled to future meeting.
Wrap up topics and schedule next meeting


TJ/Carole will issue notes
TJ will develop list of questions for Itron that the LFC had – send to committee for review then
to Hantz to provide to Itron.
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