Situation
Black Hills Colorado Gas was preparing its second Gas Infrastructure Plan under Colorado’s gas infrastructure planning requirements. The utility needed to present an integrated view of future customer demand, design-day requirements, capital investments, emissions, and customer impacts, while also evaluating potential non-pipeline alternatives to selected infrastructure projects. The plan needed to satisfy detailed regulatory requirements and provide a transparent basis for assessing the utility’s long-term system needs and investment decisions.
Approach
CRA’s Energy team led the market assessment, scenario development, customer and demand forecasting, non-pipeline alternative analysis, and overall development of the plan. Working with the utility and engineering specialists, CRA developed internally consistent Reference, High, and Low scenarios covering customer counts, annual gas demand, design-day demand, and greenhouse gas emissions. We also applied a structured NPA process that identified potential alternative solutions, evaluated technical feasibility, and compared traditional infrastructure with combinations of energy efficiency, demand-side measures, and supplemental gas supply using multiple benefit-cost tests.
Result
CRA helped Black Hills deliver a cohesive 2026–2031 Gas Infrastructure Plan that connected market fundamentals, localized system requirements, capital planning, non-pipeline alternatives, and customer impacts within a single planning framework. The work established repeatable forecasting and NPA methodologies that can support future infrastructure planning and regulatory filings. It also demonstrated an objective approach to alternatives analysis by identifying whether proposed solutions could satisfy the underlying system need and whether they were cost-effective relative to planned infrastructure.
