To: Members of the Castle Rock Water Commission
From: Mark Marlowe, P.E., Director of Castle Rock Water
Nichol Bussey, Business Solutions Manager
Paul Rementer, Enterprise Fund Analyst
Title
2022 Customer Characteristics
Town Council Agenda Date: NA
Body
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Executive Summary
As part of the annual rates and fees study, Castle Rock Water (CRW) staff gathers several pieces of information to input into the four enterprise models for calculating rates, system development fees and cost of service. Throughout the study, staff will bring to Commission some of those inputs and deliverables used for this process.
Customer Characteristics Analysis (Attachment A)
CRW conducts an in-depth analysis of accounts in service to determine customer characteristics and consumption patterns. We start by looking at the most current billing data for FY2021. From there, we break down the number of accounts by meter size and customer class. We then compare the number of actual permits for the last several years to the number of projected permits in that same year.
An average consumption based on the most current three years (2019-2021) by account, meter size, customer class and winter versus summer season is calculated. This average three-year period serves as a comparison to previous three-year periods going back as far as 2011. This takes into consideration weather patterns and rainfall variances from year to year. Customer data for the last three years (2019-2021) then determines an average representative customer for each customer class. One customer from each customer class then represents the class average and their consumption patterns calculate a typical customer’s annual bill.
Billed usage by tier from 2012-2021 by customer class is analyzed to see if customers are staying within their budgeted tiered rate structure. The purpose of this data analysis is also to see if customers over time are conserving water and avoiding Tier 3 - Excessive usage and Surcharge (over 40,000 gallons per month).
We also look at the customers with a 0.67 single family equivalent (SFE) to see if their consumption patterns are meeting the intent of the program, to use a third less water than an average ¾” residential customer’s usage. In addition to the 0.67 SFE accounts, we review the Water Efficiency Plan (WEP) accounts which started in 2019.
Other areas of interest within the study include consumption patterns based on watering schedules, consumption patterns based on water wiser designations, customer class consumption based on irrigated areas, consumption patterns for customers designated as Home Owner’s Associations (HOAs), bulk water accounts consumption, and Town accounts consumption patterns over time, just to name a few.
Some conclusions that CRW has drawn from this year’s customer characteristics analysis include:
1. Our projections for estimated growth continue to be lower than actual growth numbers. The actual growth results have resulted in higher than projected revenues. We regularly review our capital projects to ensure that both timing and capacities meet the needs of this growth. We look at various planning scenarios and move up capital projects where necessary to meet the future needs of the system.
2. The three year rolling average in residential consumption shows a slight decrease during the past comparison period.
3. Non-residential customer water use has remained flat year over year with the exception of the hospital, where water use has been rising since 2013.
4. The 0.67 program appears to be working fairly well in terms of meeting the goals of reduced water consumption.
5. The Water Efficiency Plan program also appears to be working in terms of reducing average water use of residential development.
6. The Water Wiser program does not appear to be resulting in as much savings in water as we would hope, with water wiser customers on average using more water during irrigation season than non-water wiser customers. However, we did see the average consumption for water wiser customers decrease at a slightly higher rate than non-water wiser customers versus the prior study.
Growth Forecast by Year 2022-2027 (Attachment B)
Attachment B shows the preliminary projected growth numbers for 2022-2027 for all customer classes. This information comes from the Town’s Development Services Department. These growth numbers are inputs into the rates and cost of service models to forecast the increase in accounts, customer usage and change in future revenues.
Attachments
Attachment A: Customer Characteristics Analysis
Attachment B: Growth Forecast by Year 2022-2027