An integral evaluation of supply-side and demand-side electricity options

The authors present an integrated evaluation of five supply-side and five demand-side electricity options conducted by the Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corporation. This evaluation involved performing decision-tree analyses of the present value of forecast-period revenue requirements using MIDAS (the Multiobject Integrated Decision Analysis System), a new, ERPI-developed, microcomputer-based, utility system planning and financial model. The results-obtained by comparing the results of high-, medium-, and low-load-growth and fuel-price scenarios with those of a base-case scenario-indicated that the demand-side options yielded a $4.3 million reduction in revenue requirements. By contrast, customer-owned generation yielded an expected increase in revenue requirements of $2.8 million. The analysis indicated that demand-side options offered both a greater expected benefit and a significantly smaller variation in outcomes