Idaho Power Quarterly Report

From Yahoo Finance, 10/29/09, Form 10Q for Idaho Power Co.

http://biz.yahoo.com/e/091029/4964810-q.html

. . . IPC has several major projects in development. These projects are summarized here and are discussed further in "LIQUIDITY AND CAPITAL RESOURCES - Capital Requirements - Major Projects."

� Langley Gulch power plant (2012 baseload resource): On September 1, 2009, the IPUC issued an order granting IPC's March 6, 2009, request for a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN) authorizing IPC to construct, own and operate the Langley Gulch power plant (Langley Gulch). The order also provided for cost recovery and ratemaking assurances requested by IPC related to Langley Gulch. Langley Gulch will be a natural gas-fired combined cycle combustion turbine generating plant with a summer nameplate capacity of approximately 300 MWs and a winter capacity of approximately 330 MWs. The plant will be constructed at an estimated cost of $427 million near New Plymouth, Idaho commencing in summer 2010, and is anticipated to achieve commercial operation by November 1, 2012. The plant will connect to IPC's existing grid.

� Gateway West transmission project: IPC and PacifiCorp are jointly exploring Gateway West, a project to build transmission lines between Windstar, a substation located near Douglas, Wyoming and Hemingway, a substation located in the vicinity of Melba and Murphy, Idaho near Boise. The estimated cost for IPC's share of the project is between $500 million and $600 million. The lines will provide transmission service for existing network and native load customers and their forecasted growth and provide for existing third-party transmission service requests. This project is intended to relieve existing congestion by increasing transmission capacity and to improve reliability to comply with reliability regulations. Initial phases of the project could be completed by 2014.

� Boardman-Hemingway transmission project: IPC is also exploring alternatives for the construction of a 500-kV line between southwestern Idaho at the Hemingway substation and the Northwest at the Boardman substation. IPC estimates construction costs of $600 million and expects to seek partners for up to 50 percent of the project when construction commences. The Boardman-Hemingway Line will provide transmission service for existing network and native load customers and their forecasted growth and provides for existing third-party transmission service requests. This project is intended to relieve existing congestion by increasing transmission capacity and to improve reliability to comply with reliability regulations. IPC estimates the project will be completed in 2015. . .

Wind, CHP and Smart Grid Energy

Three stories on small-power producer contracts and a $47 million DOE Smart Grid award:

(1) Smart Grid Grant Application Selected by DOE http://www.idahopower.com/NewsCommunity/News/upClose/showupClose.cfm?prID=2254

BOISE, Idaho Oct 27th 2009 — IDACORP, Inc. (NYSE:IDA) subsidiary Idaho Power Company’s Advanced Metering and Customer Systems projects were selected out of 400 received proposals for a potential award of $47 million in funding by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

In a letter to Idaho Power, the DOE stated it is “pleased to inform you that your application in response to the Smart Grid Investment Grant [Funding Opportunity Announcement] has been selected for award negotiations.”

Idaho Power submitted a request for funding in early August to further develop Smart Grid systems by leveraging the Idaho Public Utilities Commission’s approved Advanced Metering Infrastructure deployment. The projects outlined in Idaho Power’s proposal involved a customer-centric approach to achieving measurable results in three integrated areas:
• Grid reliability
• Involved and informed participation by consumers
• Sustainability through integration of renewable resources

“Selection of Idaho Power’s Advanced Metering and Customer Systems projects for potential stimulus funding is an opportunity to provide direct benefits to our owners and our customers,” said Dan Minor, executive vice president of operations for Idaho Power. . .

(2) Feasibility Study for a Combined Heat and Power Plant - Nampa Amalgamated Sugar Factory

The following enclosure appeared with this month's sugar factory payments:

Idaho Power Company will likely announce today (Thursday, October 22, 2009) during their Integrated Resource Plan Advisory Council meeting that they are working with the Amalgamated Sugar Company LLC and the Office of Energy Resources on a feasibility study, which would be funded by Idaho Power and the Office of Energy Resources, for a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant. If approved, the CHP plant would be located at the Nampa factory site. The CHP plant would be fired with natural gas and produce electrical power for Idaho Power's customers and supply steam to the Nampa factory for processing needs. The size of the CHP plant has not been determined, but could be substantial. The CHP plant would likely be owned and operated by Idaho Power.

It should be noted that we are in the very early stages of the feasibility study, so not too much should be made from this development at this time. however, if feasible, the project would provide a sustainable energy source for steam and power that could benefit Amalgamated and Idaho Power and provide environmental benefits to the Treasure Valley.

We will keep you informed of any significant development.

(3) Idaho Power awards three wind power contracts to Exergy Development Group 16th October 2009 http://www.newenergyworldnetwork.com/renewable-energy-news/by_technology/wind/idaho-power-awards-three-wind-power-contracts-to-exergy-development-group.html

US utility company Idaho Power has awarded three 20-year power purchase agreements to local renewable company Exergy Devepment Group, which plans to build three wind farms in the south of the state.

State regulator the Idaho Public Utilities Commission approved the sales agreements for the three projects - Camp Reed, 22.5MW; Payne’s Ferry, 21MW; and Yahoo Creek, 21MW - which are scheduled to commence operation 20 September 2010.

The projects were commissioned under the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA), which requires electric utilities to offer to buy power produced by qualifying small-power producers. The rate to be paid project developers, called an avoided cost rate, is to be equal to the cost the electric utility avoids if it would have had to generate the power itself or purchase it from another source.

Under the agreements, each of the plants will deliver up to 10MW on an average monthly basis, which is the upper limit of the size of projects that can qualify for PURPA posted rates.

Under the 20-year contracts, Idaho Power will pay the posted rate of $84.40 per MWh during months of normal demand, $102.58 during months of heavy demand during the summer and Christmas holidays, and $61.47 during the low demand months of March to May.

Energy Gateway Project Still Looking For Subscribers

Clearing Up / This Week http://www.newsdata.com/cu/thisweek.html
[CU 1413 / October 26, 2009]

Key to Long-Haul Transmission May Be Solving 'Financial Knot'

PacifiCorp's Gateway Energy Project, which proposes connecting wind energy in Wyoming with markets in the Northwest and Southwest, has yet to attract the interest of power developers. PacifiCorp and Idaho Power--its partner in the Gateway West segment--will continue to develop the line but only to serve their native loads. The lack of a financing model for long-haul wind is also an issue with other transmission projects in the West, and could dampen renewable energy development in distant, but energy-rich Montana and Wyoming.

(Energy News Data/Supply & Demand complete article by subscription only)

An Alternative to your Local Power Company

Baker County's Electric Cooperative http://otec.coop/

Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative (OTEC) is one of Oregon's largest distribution cooperatives. Headquartered in Baker City, Oregon, with district offices in La Grande, John Day, and Burns, OTEC serves approximately 30,000 members in Baker, Union, Grant, and Harney counties with a network of overhead and underground lines over 2,950 miles long. OTEC's distribution system represents an investment of more than $122 million.

OTEC is a consumer-owned cooperative. Its policies are established by a nine-person board of directors of whom each is a bill-paying, resident member elected by fellow members.

OTEC is required to charge a membership fee to maintain its status as a nonprofit cooperative. A membership fee of one cent has been established to meet this requirement.

Each month, consumers get news about OTEC and their electric service through the Ruralite magazine. Members are invited to join their friends and neighbors at the annual meeting held at various locations throughout our serving area each year. Candidates for the board of directors are elected at the annual meeting.

Sounds good, doesn't it?

Alternate Energy Holdings Submits Application for New Idaho Nuclear Plant Site

http://www.pinnacledigest.com/articles/alternate-energy-holdings-submits-application-new-idaho-nuclear-plant-site

Alternate Energy Holdings, Inc. (OTC: AEHI.PK): AEHI submitted a Comprehensive Plan amendment application in Payette County, Idaho for the development of a nuclear power generating facility on approximately 5,100 acres of land. This is a key step to developing an additional nuclear site in Idaho. Our Elmore County rezone application is still in process. During this period other Idaho communities and groups began to learn of the significant economic benefits an advanced nuclear plant brings to areas particularly rural communities. Some US communities have issued statements to the press inviting nuclear developers and several states have even offered tax incentives. . .

Where is the Integrity of the Mapping Process?

The following email was sent to members of the Project Advisory Team who attended the mapping sessions October 1st. We are wondering why the follow-up to a request to include a larger mapping area is limited to Harney and Grant Counties in Oregon, when the repeated request was made to include Ada and Gem Counties in Idaho as well.

The situation is so reliably one-sided that the decision-making appears to be pre-emptive and irrefutable. The only conclusion anyone can draw is that the much-ballyhooed mapping process is completely lacking in integrity.

SIP's Route 4 follows the original all-Idaho advisory committee's approval of Idaho Power's Treasure Valley Electrical Loop to the east of Boise:

The first mapping session for the South Project Advisory Team was held on October 1. Thank you to those who were able to attend. Your participation is greatly appreciated.
All routes that were developed at the Central, North and South mapping sessions are currently being analyzed. A summary of each meeting is being prepared and will be distributed to Project Advisory Team members within the next few weeks.

During the mapping sessions, Project Advisory Team members in eastern Oregon and western Idaho asked Idaho Power to evaluate possible routes in Grant and Harney counties. Idaho Power will hold two open house format public meetings in October to inform the communities in Grant and Harney counties about the Boardman to Hemingway Transmission Line Project.

These meetings will be held:

October 21 4 - 7 p.m.
John Day, OR
Senior Citizens Community Center
142 NE Dayton St.
John Day, OR 97845

October 22 4 - 7 p.m.
Burns, OR
Harney County Community Center
484 North Broadway Ave.
Burns, OR 97720

We anticipate our fourth set of Project Advisory Team meetings will be held in early December. We will continue to keep you informed and notify you of the details of these meetings within the next few weeks.

Thank you for your continued involvement in the Community Advisory Process.

We ask again: Where are the dates for meetings in Ada and Gem Counties?

What will talking power meters say about you?

http://redtape.msnbc.com/2009/10/would-you-sign-up-for-a-discount-with-your-power-company-in-exchange-for-surrendering-control-of-your-thermostat-what-if-it.html
10/0/2009 by Bob Sullivan

Would you sign up for a discount with your power company in exchange for surrendering control of your thermostat? What if it means that, one day, your auto insurance company will know that you regularly arrive home on weekends at 2:15 a.m., just after the bars close?

Welcome to the complex world of the Smart Grid, which may very well pit environmental concerns against thorny privacy issues. If you think such debates are purely philosophical, you’re behind the times.

. . . Up to three-fourths of the homes in the United States are expected to be placed on the “Smart Grid” in the next decade, collecting and storing data on the habits of their residents by the petabyte. And while there’s no reason to believe . . . utilities will share the data with outside firms, some experts are already asking the question: Will saving the planet mean inviting Big Brother into the home? Or at least, as Commerce Secretary Gary Locke recently warned, will privacy concerns be the “Achilles’ heel” of the Smart Grid?

To advocates, the Smart Grid means appliances will work in electric harmony: Icemakers will operate only when the washing machine isn't, TVs will shut off when viewers leave the room, and so on. All of these gadgets will be wirelessly connected to the Internet. Households with solar panels will actually be able to sell their excess energy back to the power company. The result: lower power consumption, lower power bills, people and planet happier. . .

Dark side of a bright idea
But others see a darker side. Utility companies, by gathering hundreds of billions of data points about us, could reconstruct much of our daily lives -- when we wake up, when we go home, when we go on vacation, perhaps even when we draw a hot bath. They might sell this information to marketing companies . . . A credit bureau or insurance company could penalize you because your energy use patterns are similar to those of other troublesome consumers. Or criminals could spy the data, then plan home burglaries with fine-tuned accuracy. . ..

'Unintended consequences'
Larry Ponemon, a privacy auditor who runs The Ponemon Institute, said it's often hard to get consumers and regulators to focus on potential privacy issues ahead of time.

"Most people don't think about the issues until they become a victim of a privacy abuse," he said. "I see the privacy issues here as potentially serious. I'm not sure if I trust the utilities. It's hard to know how that information would be appended to other information and be used against consumers.”

As an example, he cited recent moves by banks to target customers who shop at stores that are frequented by consumers with low credit scores. Some are having the credit limits lowered merely because of where they shop -- a guilt-by-association model that infuriates some consumers. . .

Cost savings, efficient allocation
. . . Early on, many consumers reflexively deleted Internet cookies in part because didn’t understand what they were, and how they helped the consumer experience. They also didn’t trust Web sites after a few embarrassing news stories.

But not all Web firms suffered that fate.

"Amazon is doing well, but they are tracking the books you buy. But they are also making suggestions,” he said. “I think people feel, ‘Hey, you are doing something for me.’ And that’s ok.”

The key, he said, will be the actions of utility companies early on in the Smart Grid upgrade process. They need to “recognize that they will be having complicated conversations with customers” and work to build trust now, before the digital makeover begins in earnest. . .

Already, complaints of high bills
Discounts, like the one offered to Maryland consumers, could certainly serve as the carrot that entices U.S. power users to sign up for smart meters, and agree to allow collection of data. But some consumers already feel new meters are being used as sticks instead of carrots. . .

That's hardly the way to win over a potentially skeptical population. Still, someone will have to pay for installation of two-way electronic sensors in the system. The data mining and marketing opportunities may prove too tempting, since they could fund much of the upgrade. But doing so could create a backlash that could place the entire upgrade in peril. . .

Assumptions & Intimidations

Assumptions made and displayed . . .

When we walked into the mapping instruction meeting Thursday night at the Four Rivers Cultural Center, it was with surprise and disbelief. Again.

A dozen color maps, approx. 6' x 8' detailed with land use, natural resource, cultural and historical and other constraints, were prominently displayed on the walls so we would know where not to put our proposed routes.

The problem was, they were all giant maps of Oregon. You could see a narrow strip of Idaho down the right side. The two Oregon and two Idaho routes proposed by Stop Idaho Power many, many months ago could not even be drawn properly on the maps.

If you wanted to put a route in Idaho, the detailed information on constraints was not available unless you wanted to look at one of the few computers run by a Tetra Tech employee. The meeting itself was attended mostly by Oregon residents, as have been previous meetings. Apparently Idaho residents do not feel the need to be as involved in the process. No Idaho resource officials to speak of, although we requested them earlier.

We drew Idaho routes in the margins of the printed maps of Oregon during the actual Thursday mapping.

Gary Pearson stood up at the beginning of the Wednesday evening meeting and gave an impassioned, and completely justified and necessary speech about the utter lack of attention and consideration given to our repeated requests that Idaho routes be considered along with Oregon routes during the mapping process. It is apparent that we in Oregon are deemed dim enough to accept overbearing assumptions like this.

Mr. Pearson gently indicated what we intend to do if these assumptions continue:

• We can again stop this at a PUC hearing for Need (it has been conclusively stopped and proven once already that it doesn't NEED to be in Oregon,) and
• We can stop this at Oregon's Department of Energy EFSC hearing by testifying that the Community Advisory Project mapping process is flawed because Idaho Power Company intentionally withheld pertinent information based on assumptions within the organization that Oregon will bear the brunt of a line that serves Idaho and Idahoans.

The first maps showing the original route through Idaho were discarded long ago in favor of the obvious NIMBY corridors bulging into Malheur County, setting off fire alarms among the rural citizenry that resulted in the formation of Stop Idaho Power. (To be sure, these routes unaccountably crossed several Idaho population centers and irrigated farmland as well.)

And now, after nearly a year of effort to gain recognition as something barely above illiterate peasants, and even though Exclusive Farm Use land is finally listed under the constraint exclusions, it is clear that the attitude has been, and continues to be, that Boardman to Hemingway is going to stay in Oregon no matter what anyone, hired, helpful or hindering, has to say about it.

We have requested a meeting to address this unacceptable situation and have been assured by the RCBI facilitators that such a meeting will take place.

We expect that a valid and reasonable route through Idaho will be identified and submitted as a part of this process.