Corporate Model Programs for System Planning Evaluations

Utility corporate models have been developed to provide financial planning assistance in many utilities. This paper describes new corporate models designed specifically for assisting system planners in performing economic and financial evaluations of alternate plans. The programs described form an integrated data processing and evaluation system to produce utility corporate models for both investor-owned and government-sponsored electric utilities. The system described makes use of readily accessible data to provide forecasts of company revenues and costs. Specific data pertaining to the costs of a series of given system development plans are case input data. The system will then produce financial forecasts and automatically perform both a year-by-year comparative evaluation between plans and a present value calculation. Financial models are available for both the investor-owned utility and the semi-government type of utility corporation or commission. This commission model is useful for studying the effects of alternate capital growth policies. Examples are presented in the paper of both system expansion studies and studies of the percent of alternate policies on the capital expenditure growth to be financed out of revenues.