Energy needs to be consumed as it is produced. There is a delicate balance to forecasting energy demand for today and for the future, and mapping out the best paths to produce and deliver it.

Idaho Power’s Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) is a 20-year planning document which has two main goals:

• Identify sufficient resources to reliably serve the growing demand for energy within Idaho Power’s service area, and
• Ensure the portfolio of resources selected balances cost, risk and environmental concerns.

One of the plan’s secondary goals is to explore transmission alternatives.

Transmission lines are vital to bringing energy into a utility’s service area. For Idaho Power, there are two, 500 kilovolt transmission projects in progress which are instrumental to not only servicing Idahoans' future energy demands, but are necessary to strengthen power reliability throughout the Northwest.

These projects are:

• Boardman to Hemingway, a line the spans from the Boardman Substation in Boardman, Ore., to the Hemingway Substation near Melba, Idaho, and
• Gateway West, a joint project between Rocky Mountain Power and Idaho Power that crosses western Wyoming and southern Idaho.

When built, the two projects will collectively span 1,450 miles.

Gateway West

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) extended a previous deadline for public comment to Sept. 4, allowing community groups and others to submit routing ideas and alternates for the Gateway West Transmission Line project across southern Idaho into western Wyoming.

Idaho Power personnel worked with communities across southern Idaho this summer to refine the proposed and alternate routes that now have been submitted to the BLM for environmental analysis through the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process.

The analysis will take several months to complete, but there will be a public comment period as well as open houses once the Draft Environmental Impact Statement is released next spring. Project status meetings continue with communities this fall.

For the latest map of proposed routes and comprehensive project information, visit www.gatewaywestproject.com.

Boardman To Hemingway

The Boardman to Hemingway project advisory teams met throughout September and early October to begin putting proposed routes on maps that eventually will connect the proposed substation at Boardman, Ore., with Hemingway Substation southwest of Melba.

Construction of the Hemingway Substation is under way and it is expected to be in service in 2012.

Mapping sessions with team members will refine the routes until there is a proposed route and alternates for inclusion in the application to the BLM for a right of way grant and to Oregon’s Energy Facility Siting Council for site certificate.

Since May 2009, the project advisory teams have:

• Reviewed and discussed the purpose and need for the projects
• Documented criteria important to their communities when identifying potential routes
• Reviewed and discussed regulatory and engineering criteria that must be considered when identifying potential routes

Seven public meetings were held in August to share project information with the public and gain additional input. Additional meetings will be scheduled this fall to review mapping proposals. View project details.