AUTHOR: Datta, Kyle; Hansen, Lena; Swisher, Joel
DOCUMENT ID: 2006-09
YEAR: 2006
DOCUMENT TYPE: Report or White Paper
PUBLISHER: Electric Power Research Institute
Over the last two decades, traditional integrated resource planning (IRP) has proven to be a
valuable tool for evaluating the tradeoffs between supply-side generation and demand-side
efficiency resources. However, there has been increasing focus on the incorporation of
renewable, distributed, and demand-side resources into utility planning, which requires new
methodologies to assess the value of these resources. Traditional IRP is generation-centric and
typically fails to take into account the operational performance and costs and benefits of the
distribution system. Traditional IRP takes a narrow view of reliability as loss of load
probabilities and can neglect the more subtle issues of power quality. Traditional IRP rarely
quantifies the risk tradeoffs between fossil and renewable resources.
In support of the integrated resource plans of Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO) and its
subsidiary companies Maui Electric Company (MECO) and Hawaii Electric Light Company
(HELCO), EPRI with leadership from Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) conducted a series of
workshops. These workshops provided information to HECO staff on RMI’s methodologies to
integrate risk/benefit analysis of energy resources into the integrated resource planning process.
HECO seeks practical methods for their IRP practitioners to integrate these issues into current
and future IRP processes. RMI has codified its insights into incorporating renewable, distributed,
and demand-side resources into the integrated planning process with its Energy Resource
Investment Strategy (ERIS) methodology. This report documents the details of the workshops
presented to the HECO utilities.