Growth Forecasting

Chelan PUD uses growth forecasting, planning standards, and long-range planning to predict how much and where electrical load growth will occur so we can build the necessary infrastructure (like substations) to serve this growth.

Load Forecasting and Infrastructure Planning

- PUD staff use energy demand data from the past year, and looking further back in history, to model the rate of load growth in the county and look for patterns.
- We also look at specific historic events (like major cold snaps) or significant changes to customer behavior (like the transition to working from home) to understand their impacts on our peak energy demand.
- We have developed planning standards for when and how to upgrade or build new infrastructure to meet growing demand.
- Chelan PUD also maintains compliance with the National Electrical Safety Code (NESC).
- For new substations, we begin the planning process to site and construct a new substation when the existing substation serving the area approaches 80% capacity.
- Capacity is calculated based on peak loading of the substation, not average load.
- On a quarterly basis, PUD staff evaluate anticipated new electrical loads (from connecting new homes and businesses), new types of electrical load (such as electric vehicle charging stations) and changes to customer use (such as seasonal homeowners transitioning to living in Chelan County full time) to create a load growth forecast.
- We coordinate with municipal and county representatives to understand their growth management plans and anticipate where growth may occur.
- We also factor in conservation initiatives, and distributed generation from customers using solar or wind, for instance.
- These quarterly forecasts are used to develop and update a ten-year baseline case, high and low projections for load growth in the future.
- You can view past quarterly load growth updates in the Related Documents section of this page.
- Using the PUD planning standards and the projected load growth scenarios, we create long-range plans for building new infrastructure and asset management.
- These plans include 20- and 5-year substation siting plans, and annual capital improvement plans.
- These plans to accommodate growth may include a combination of siting and building new substations, adding another transformer at existing substations, building new distribution feeders from existing substations, and replacing or upgrading existing distribution infrastructure.
- Once we have identified a project in our plans, we build the infrastructure.
- Learn more about our process to site and build new substations here.
- Visit our system impact fee page for more information about how we fund infrastructure projects to serve growth.
- View our current capital improvement projects here.

Funding Growth

In 2022, Chelan PUD implemented a system impact fee to new electrical connections. The system impact fee is designed to offset the cost of constructing new infrastructure, like substations, to serve growth in Chelan County while keeping rates low for existing customers. Learn more here.

Related Pages

Related Documents

Growth Forecasting

Funding Growth

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