Idaho Power applies for transmission line certification
On Tuesday, Idaho Power announced it had applied for a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity for its Boardman to Hemingway (B2H) transmission line.
The certificate would officially recognize the project’s value for the state’s residents while allowing Idaho Power to enhance its grid resiliency as well as provide reliable, affordable energy.
“It’s hard to overstate the importance of B2H and transmission projects like it,” said Ryan Adelman, Idaho Power’s Vice President of Power Supply. “This transmission line is the lowest-cost, lowest-risk way to meet our customers’ growing needs. It will also help utilities across the northwestern U.S. by providing another transmission path to move energy and increase access to clean generation resources like hydro in the Pacific Northwest, wind in Wyoming, and even solar in the Southwest.”
B2H is a proposed 290-mile, 500-kilovolt line connecting a future substation near Boardman, Ore., to Idaho Power’s Hemingway Substation in Owyhee County, Idaho. The connection will bolster power availability in the Pacific Northwest and Intermountain West regions, where population growth and extreme weather have driven peak energy demand to existing transmission lines’ limits.
The company said in the summer, when demand is up in southern Idaho, Idaho Power will use B2H to import more than 500 megawatts from the Pacific Northwest – enough power for more than 150,000 homes during peak usage hours. Utilities in the Pacific Northwest will cover peak demand in the winter by importing energy from the Intermountain West and other regions.
The application for Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity asks the Idaho Public Utilities Commission to recognize that B2H is in the public’s interest and would allow the building and operation of the project. Idaho Power is also leading efforts to build B2H across counties on the eastern side of Oregon and hopes to break ground on B2H in the second half of 2023. The project could come online as early as 2026.
