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Non-Wires Alternatives

Moving Toward the Interactive Grid of the Future

Non-Wires Alternatives

We are committed to considering Non-Wires Alternatives (NWA) solutions to electric capital investments where they are appropriate and cost-effective, and supporting principles from the New York Public Service Commission’s Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) regulatory framework. NWA solutions utilize third-party Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) to postpone certain traditional construction projects needed primarily to correct system overloading conditions and in some cases, system reliability issues.

Strategy

Our strategy for NWA is to build a portfolio of NWA DER projects which are cost effective for customers, provide reliable alternatives to traditional capital investment projects, and provide full cost recovery and earnings opportunities for our companies, while we comply with regulatory directives and learn from and work cooperatively with other utilities and stakeholders.

Project Selection and Process

NWA solutions provide the opportunity to improve reliability, explore alternative infrastructure solutions and contribute to New York’s energy vision. To determine upcoming distribution and transmission projects suitable for these solutions, several factors are considered. Traditional electric system construction projects that meet a need for decreased demand and/or increased reliability, with a minimum of 36 months until time of need and construction costs greater than $1,000,000 are reviewed as potential NWA projects. Projects are evaluated and ordered according to time of need. Requests for proposals (RFP) are then scheduled and reviewed to determine cost-effectiveness and technical viability.

Project Opportunity

NYSEG’s Hilldale substation, located in the Liberty division, consists of (1) 10.5 MVA substation transformer bank feeding (1) 12.47kV distribution circuit serving approximately 2,009 customers. The station transformer bank has exceeded its capacity nameplate rating in recent years. The traditional wires project is to upgrade the Hilldale 34.5-12.5KV 10.5MVA substation transformer by adding a new 115-12.5KV 12/16/20 (22.4) MVA LTC transformer with provisions for additional circuits.

An RFP requesting potential NWA solutions will be issued in 2021 to establish sufficient quantities of Distributed Energy Resources (“DER”) into the area served by the Hilldale substation to reduce the peak loading on the individual transformer bank to below the nameplate rating.