Monday 16 August 2010
Idaho Power Co. has filed its integrated resource plan (IRP) with the Idaho Public Utilities Commission (PUC). The company plans to add about 3,000 MW of capacity over the next 20 years to meet anticipated load growth, according to the IRP.
The plan also spells out how the company plans to reduce summer peak load by 323 MW by 2012, due largely to demand-reduction programs aimed at commercial, industrial and irrigation customers. Energy efficiency programs are forecast to reduce load by 127 average MW by 2029, a 53% increase over measures included in Idaho Power's 2006 IRP.
Idaho Power's southern Idaho and eastern Oregon territory serves about 486,000 customers, but those numbers are expected to increase to 680,000 at the end of the 20-year plan in 2029. Idaho Power anticipates that summertime peak-load hours will increase by 53 MW over the next 20 years and average load will increase by 13 MW during the same time frame.
To accommodate the load growth over the next 10 years, Idaho Power continues to rely on expanding its demand-reduction programs. It also plans to add 540 MW of new generation, including the 300 MW Langley Gulch natural-gas plant, which is now under construction near New Plymouth.
The company also plans to add 150 MW of wind generation and 40 MW of geothermal generation. Completion of a proposed major 500-kv transmission line from the Boardman Substation near Boardman, Ore., to the Hemingway Substation near Melba will make available another 425 MW of capacity to Idaho Power's customers. An upgrade of the Shoshone Falls hydroelectric facility will make another 20 MW available by 2015.
Looking beyond 10 years, the company plans another 1,400 MW of generation from natural gas plants and 500 MW from wind. The additional wind assumes that the Gateway West Transmission Project, a joint transmission project proposed by Idaho Power and Rocky Mountain Power that would pass through southern Wyoming and southern Idaho, will be completed.
SOURCE: Idaho Public Utilities Commission
