Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative, as known as NOVEC, is responsible for the delivery of electric power to homes and businesses in a large portion of the Northern Virginia area. The company procures and distributes power to a multitude of commercial and residential customers.
NOVEC is a not-for-profit cooperative business headquartered in Manassas, Virginia. It is wholly owned by its member-owners. The company’s service area includes the counties of Clarke, Fairfax, Fauquier, Loudon, Prince William, and Stafford. It provides power for more than 155,000 residences and covers an area of 651 square miles. NOVEC maintains more than 6,880 miles of power lines
Along with the maintenance of existing power lines and the servicing of everyday customer needs, NOVEC must plan, construct, and install new distribution services for the growing NOVA region. Projecting market demand accurately helps NOVEC to efficiently plan its construction activities and is likely to reduce the uncertainties associated with any procurement plans thereby increasing the likelihood that their costs will be reduced. Every year NOVEC uses D.C. region growth data to project a long term forecast of expected growth for their service area. However, there is not an equivalent model to forecast costs associated with new residential construction.
Our team was tasked by NOVEC to analyze a historical data set of Electrical Utility Construction projects and calibrate a model that will accept as an input the forecasted number of new residential customers. The model will forecast the total expected costs that will be incurred to connect those customers as well as the ancillary costs that are incurred from Mainline Distribution Line construction, Infrastructure, and Other related projects.