Los Alamos board accepts electrification study, asks staff to incorporate edits by month-end

The Los Alamos County Board of Public Utilities voted July 16 to accept the final written report on an electrification study, contingent on incorporation of changes satisfactory to staff by the end of the month.

The report, prepared for the county by consultants including Jake Wells (project manager) and Adam Young (director, utility finance and rates practice, 1898 and Company, a division of Burns & McDonnell Engineering), models three electrification-adoption scenarios and estimates the electrical system upgrades, timing and costs the county could face over 15- and 30-year horizons. The board discussed the technical findings, financial modeling and potential policy and rate responses before approving acceptance.

The study’s central finding is that large capital projects — notably a proposed Eastgate substation serving the Los Alamos town site and upgrades to the White Rock substation and distribution feeders — may be required depending on how quickly customers adopt electric vehicles, electric heating and other end uses. The consultants presented three scenarios with different adoption and distributed-solar assumptions; they reported total scenario costs (system improvements plus asset replacements) of about $282.1 million in the highest-adoption scenario and $244.1 million in a lower-adoption scenario for the 30-year horizon.

Adam Young, the study’s finance lead, told the board the analysis used an incremental cash-flow approach that isolates the incremental sales from electrification and the incremental capital required to serve that load. “The operating margins from new sales can fund the incremental debt and the incremental capital” in the higher-adoption scenarios, Young said, but he warned that slower adoption would make funding the large substation projects more difficult and could require rate increases.

Consultants said the technical analysis showed several distribution upgrades that are common across scenarios and years: replacing the conductor along Rendijo Road with a higher-ampacity line (from a smaller conductor to a larger 477 conductor), strengthening feeder ties into the Los Alamos town site, and building an extended loop and new switchgear on White Rock Feeder 3 to better balance load and hosting capacity. The consultants also emphasized that asset-replacement needs — equipment already in the field and approaching end of life — are substantial and similar across scenarios and therefore a major driver of long-term cost.

Board members pressed presenters for the underlying energy and sales assumptions. One member said the report cites an increase of roughly 117 gigawatt‑hours per year in the high scenario — about double current retail energy — and asked for the sales model and the detailed backup tables. Consultants said supporting Excel models and 24‑hour load profiles exist and can be provided; they also said the study assumed time-of-use and demand-response programs to flatten peaks and make added sales easier to serve.

The report contained a mix of technical, financial and policy recommendations for the board and staff: (1) plan and stage substation and feeder work so the county does not overbuild if load growth is slower than expected; (2) pursue rate and program options (time‑of‑use energy rates, demand charges and demand-response programs, and targeted connection‑fee or line‑extension policies) to shift charging and heating load off peak and to better align customer costs and benefits; (3) update interconnection requirements and inverter settings as distributed solar penetration grows to avoid local high‑voltage issues (for example, volt‑var control); and (4) pursue additional analyses (detailed asset‑replacement planning, a more complete financial/rate study, IRP refresh or IRP‑light modeling and a staffing/organizational assessment).

Board members and staff also discussed nontechnical constraints that affect timing and cost: long procurement lead times for transformers and other equipment, uncertainties in federal tax‑credit programs and grants, and the fact that some transmission upgrades are on shared assets outside county control. Consultants recommended starting planning, permitting and longer‑lead procurement well ahead of any anticipated construction date to avoid a late scramble if load growth accelerates.

Votes at a glance: The board approved a motion to accept the final written electrification study report contingent on staff‑satisfactory incorporation of the changes discussed at the July 16 meeting, to be completed by the end of the month. The motion was moved by Chair Gibson, seconded (not specified in the record), and passed 4–0 with one abstention.

The board asked staff to bring follow‑up materials and supporting backup tables (sales-by-scenario, detailed capital‑timing assumptions and available Excel workbooks) for future meetings and to use the study as the basis for a multi‑year planning and rate‑design work plan. Consultants told the board they will supply further detail requested by members; staff said they will work with the consultants to finalize the report edits before the contract expiration date.