bell • weth • er:
one that leads
or is innovative;
leader; also
an indicator
of trends
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Bellwether's innovative and economic solutions help companies optimize their financial and human resources to keep pace with the swiftly changing utility market.
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Financial Solutions
Maximizing Your Success
Cost-of-Service Studies
In a world of constant technology and market changes, it is crucial to
know what it costs to serve a customer! The modern utility must know the up-to-date costs of their products and services to best determine the optimum rates that protect their investment and financial stability.
Cost-of-Service Studies are performed to determine the base costs for the types and levels of service available to customers. The study uses allocation factors based on cost causation in order to determine the utility's plant and expenses for its various rate classes. Bellwether offers specialized expertise in preparing embedded, marginal, and/or
unbundled cost-of-service studies to utilities.
Rate Design
Staying competitive in today's utility market is a critical task! Bellwether uses the results of the Cost-of-Service Study as a guideline for designing the utility's specific rates. During the rate design process, we research the market area and opportunities, and work closely with the utility to address special rate needs. Often, Bellwether works with its clients to develop specialized rates which include interruptible rates, time-of-use rates, and contractual rates for large industrial customers.
Additional concerns Bellwether considers in designing rates are:
Recovery of targeted revenue
Equitably sharing of costs among rate classes
Maintaining price stability
Market price competitiveness
Ensuring the rate design provides the correct price signal
Providing incentives for efficient use of electric service
Financial Planning
The financial integrity of the utility is a key factor in maintaining stable rates and being able to secure required capital. Bellwether works directly with utility management in making informed decisions concerning securing capital, equity management, project risk/viability, and cash management.
AMR Cost/Benefit Analysis
Bellwether Management Solutions has developed an extensive Cost/Benefit Model for determining the return on investment an electric utility could expect from the installation of an Automated Meter Reading (AMR) system. We consider many factors to determine the impact of various elements such as the cost of money, inflation, intangible or difficult-to-quantify benefits related to the outage reporting capabilities of the AMR system, and more. Once completed, we run a variety of different scenarios to enable the utility to see the range of impact and return on investment projections for the AMR project.
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