Project Evaluation and Selection at BC Hydro

Abstract

Summary form only given. Electric utilities are on a never ending quest to attain higher levels of performance for increasingly lower costs. An important part of this effort is to define meaningful definitions of performance. For distribution reliability typical approaches use reliability indices such as the system average interruption frequency index (SAIFI), the system average interruption duration index (SAIDI), and the customer average interruption duration index (CAIDI). Unfortunately, such measures are weakly correlated to customer expectations and customer satisfaction. Therefore, project evaluation and selection processes based on these measures may not be sufficient, at least from the customer perspective. At BC Hydro, performance targets are differentiated for different distribution circuits based on customer mix, geographic characteristics, and the customer expectations relates to the specific mix of geography and customer type. Such differentiation results in performance metrics that are more strongly linked to customer expectations, and serve as a solid basis for the project evaluation and selection process. This presentation describes the efforts at BC Hydro for developing performance targets, and the use of these performance targets in project evaluation and selection