BOISE, Idaho — Idaho Power’s latest long-range energy plan forecasts unprecedented growth in energy demand and lays out the preferred options for serving customers.
The 2025 Integrated Resource Plan was filed with state regulators Friday. It shows that the company needs to add significant energy resources, transmission, battery storage, and energy efficiency. The public utility commissions in Idaho and Oregon will set a schedule for public review and comment before deciding to acknowledge the plan.
“The IRP is a really detailed analysis of how we are going to continue serving our customers with safe, reliable, affordable energy in a responsible way,” said Idaho Power Resource Planning Leader Jared Hansen, who oversees the IRP process.
The utility’s preferred portfolio of resources focuses on least-cost and reliability-enhancing generation and transmission projects with an eye toward further reducing wildfire risk.
Growth continues to be driven by increases in population as well as a broad range of commercial and industrial expansion and development across the company’s service area. Although new large-demand customers are required to pay for their own costs of interconnecting to the company’s system to receive electric service, the company still must plan how best to provide that service while continuing to maintain and improve the electrical grid.
“Our plan really highlights the work we are doing to identify resources that will provide safe, reliable energy for our customers at the lowest cost over the long term,” said Mitch Colburn, Idaho Power Vice President of Planning, Engineering, and Construction. “We look at a wide range of potential resources that will serve all of our customers well into the future.”
Over the next 20 years, the company’s peak demand is expected to grow nearly 45% or 1,700 megawatts (MW), with nearly 1,000 MW of that total coming in the next five years. That 5-year increase in demand is nearly 50% more than the capacity of the company’s single largest energy source, the Brownlee hydropower plant.
The IRP also highlights the need for more transmission line infrastructure, specifically the Boardman to Hemingway and Southwest Intertie projects, which are 500-kilovolt lines that will enable the company to import energy when customer demand for electricity is high.
Idaho Power enlists the assistance of its customers in developing the IRP through an advisory panel — the Integrated Resource Plan Advisory Council (IRPAC).
The IRPAC includes major industrial customers, the environmental community, irrigation representatives, state and local elected officials, public utility commission representatives, and other interested parties.
The IRP is available at idahopower.com/irp.
About Idaho Power
Idaho Power, headquartered in vibrant and fast-growing Boise, Idaho, has been a locally operated energy company since 1916. Today, it serves a 24,000-square-mile area in Idaho and Oregon. The company has a long history of safely providing reliable, affordable, clean energy. With 17 low-cost hydroelectric projects at the core of its diverse energy mix, Idaho Power’s residential, business, and agricultural customers pay among the nation’s lowest prices for electricity. Its 2,100 employees proudly serve more than 650,000 customers with a culture of safety first, integrity always, and respect for all.
Contact:
Brad Bowlin
Communications Specialist
Idaho Power
bbowlin@idahopower.com
208-388-2803