Ascend Analytics delivers expert testimony on new approaches to develop Qualify Facility (QF) power contract rates that protected the ratepayers’ and utility’s interests.  The QF rates applied a novel new economic construct that followed FERC guidance under the Public Utilities Regulatory Act (PURPA).  During expert testimony, witness Dr. Gary Dorris, substantiated wind energy purchase rates through a Differential Revenue Requirement (DRR) approach using Ascend’s PowerSimm software.  The hourly avoided costs measured through DRR are the QF power contract rates.

The DRR approach differentiated between hours of power imports and exports to determine the hourly avoided cost to serve load.  Under import conditions, the model calculated avoided cost as a function of market price.  During export conditions, avoided costs were a function of the utilities own production cost from a lower cost power plant.  The result of utilizing market interactions to determine the avoided cost of production yielded the a more consistent and lower avoided cost over other approaches.