Idaho Public Utilities Commission approves Idaho Power request to build new transmission line

Idaho Public Utilities Commission (PUC) recently approved an application from Idaho Power for a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity to build a new redundant transmission line to serve the Wood River Valley.

Idaho Power, the PUC said, demonstrated that the line is needed to prevent public health and safety risks for the valley’s 9,000 residents that would be caused by an outage.

Two substations fed by a single transmission line that links substations near Hailey and Ketchum currently serve the Wood River Valley. The current line, which was built in 1962, needs to be rebuilt.

A redundant line, Idaho Power said, would allow the company to rebuild the line without planned power outages, which could last for days or weeks.

“We believe this possibility poses an unacceptable risk to public health and safety,” the Commission said.

Opposition to the company’s plan cited the aesthetic impact of the new infrastructure, questioned its ability to improve reliability and suggested that Idaho Power should explore adding distributed energy resources (DERs) to meet a portion of the area’s load.

The commission noted that DER options should continue to be explored, but they should not replace the redundant line.

“There may still be opportunities to find areas of common interest and common ground,” the
Commission said.

The order is not a mandate to extend the lines, and Idaho Power would still have to apply to the PUC to recover the costs of the $30 million project.