PUB00037

• Year: 1988
• Title: Colorado Joint Planning Study Economic Potential of Pumped Storage
• CWCB Section: Interstate & Federal
• Author: Colorado Water Resources and Power Development Authority
• Description: Assessment of whether pumped storage facilities are economically attractive to Colorado utilities
• Publications - Doc Type: Water Resource Studies

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price deflator after the first ten years of the study. These rates are presented on
Table 2-3.

Table 2-3
National DRI Fuel Escalation Rates
(Percent)

Y.ur
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006

.Q..Q..U
5.8
5.8
5.8
6.0
6.3
6.1
5.9
5.6
5.4

Q.ll
12.6
12.0
12.0
11.7
11.3
9.7
9.0
8.9
8.4

Q..i!
10.2
10.0
10.4
10.3
9.9
8.5
7.8
7.4
7.3

From 1987 to 1996 utility fuel costs were used because of pricing provisions contained
in the coal and natural gas contracts already in place. Fixed charge rates reflected
those currently used by the utilities. For the pumped storage unit, a 10.0 percent
interest rate was used.

2.3 Base Case

To evaluate the pumped storage potential in Colorado, an analysis was made of a
utility system's revenue requirements with and without generic pumped storage unit(s).
First, cases were evaluated without pumped storage. The base case analysis (without
pumped storage) included three different phases: (1) benchmarking the power
systems for 1986, (2) completing a 20-year analysis with a 30-year extension period
for the individual utility systems, and (3) performing a similar evaluation of each
individual utility system interconnected with the other utilities in the state.

Before the long-term analysis of the power systems was completed, the economic
dispatch for each utility was benchmarked. This means that the EGEAS model was
used to verify each system's economics of the dispatch, purchased power, and sale
contracts and emergency and economy power exchanges for the year 1986 as well as
2-7