Delivery system planning
What is delivery system planning?
Delivery system planning (DSP) is the engineering function of evaluating how PSE’s energy delivery system must operate in order to meet customer needs and identifying solutions to predicted deficiencies under various conditions in order to ensure reliable delivery of energy into the future.
The delivery system planning process can be simplified into 6 planning steps triggered by many different types of needs that the delivery system infrastructure must address. The result is a short-term delivery system investment plan that is optimized to maximize benefit to cost and a long term plan for complex projects, program planning, and development of customer facing offerings.
The delivery system planning process requires many robust capabilities across PSE from the beginning of the process such as gathering customer, load, and distributed energy resources information and forecasts to beyond the planning process end to the testing of results and benefit delivery.
Frequently asked questions
What is the energy delivery system?
The energy delivery system is the network of wires and pipelines, both distribution and transmission, that deliver power and natural gas from where the energy enters PSE's system to a customer meter.
How does the delivery system support resource planning?
Coordinating delivery system planning with resource planning provides benefits, by bringing together solutions to address delivery system challenges while meeting resource needs. A coordinated process must accommodate:
- Customer-owned resources and electric vehicles
- Programs such as distribution automation and demand response
- Distributed energy resources
- Energy storage
- Energy efficiency strategies
How does Integrated Resource Planning and Delivery System Planning processes interact?
The IRP and DSP processes use some of the same core information just in different ways. Data flows from one process to the other at different steps in the processes.
Delivery system planning and the integrated resource plan feed processes provide feedback loops into each other.