Energy and electricity
Announced generation and delivered power are different quantities. A project can hold a contract for megawatts and still wait years for a connection. DDA follows demand, generation, transmission, and connection as one chain, and finds the link that sets the date that power reaches the customer.
01 The delivery chain
Power reaches a large customer through a sequence. Demand grows or a new load applies for service. The utility forecasts the load. A generator gets a contract and a permit. Transmission carries the power. An interconnection study sizes the connection. Equipment orders and construction follow, then energization.
Each step has its own lead time. Generation can take a few years to build. Transmission lines and substations can take longer, because of route selection, consultation, permits, and long equipment orders. The slowest link sets the date.
02 The evidence problem
The utility's resource plan gives a load forecast and a plan to meet it. The forecast rests on assumptions about industrial demand, electrification of transport and heating, and population. Large industrial loads enter the forecast in different ways: some as firm commitments, some as probabilities. DDA reads the assumption behind each block of load.
A signed electricity purchase agreement shows that a buyer will take power from a plant. It does not show that a line exists to carry the power to the buyer. DDA separates the contract from the connection.
Queue data shows how many projects wait for interconnection and how much capacity they hold. Many queued projects never build. A queue total overstates future supply, and the share that builds is a base rate that DDA uses when it exists.
Rate figures need a definition. An average rate hides the rate that a new large load pays, and it hides the cost that existing customers carry when the utility builds for a new load. DDA states which rate applies to the question.
03 Where it usually breaks
Interconnection breaks the schedule for industrial projects. A mine, a processing plant, or an electrified facility needs a firm connection date before it makes a financial decision. A date that slips by two years can change the economics.
Transmission capacity breaks regional development. A region can hold available generation and lack the line that moves it to the site. A regional economic strategy that lists electricity as an advantage needs a test of the line, the substation, and the connection queue.
Competing demand breaks forecasts. Several projects in the same region ask for the same block of capacity. The utility cannot serve all of them in the time each one assumes. DDA sums the requests and compares them with the capacity that the utility can deliver by each year.
Price breaks investment. A project that meets every technical test can fail if the delivered price of power exceeds what its product margin supports.
04 What the work can produce
The work can produce a power-demand and capacity analysis for a region, an interconnection timeline for a named project, a load-growth and rate-impact model, a competing-demand analysis, a project economics test that shows the price of power at which a project stops paying, and a monitor of the utility and regulatory signals that show early if a connection date holds.
05 Connected capabilities and related thinking
This area uses Fiscal and scenario modelling, Land, infrastructure, and spatial analysis, and Economic and market analysis. For projects that depend on power, see Mining and critical minerals and Economic development.
06 Bring the question
Send the project, the load forecast, the connection request, or the regional strategy that assumes power. DDA will find the link that sets the date and test what changes it.