BOISE, Idaho (AP) – Idaho Power has submitted a 20-year plan to state regulators that will phase out coal-fired power plants by 2028 as part of its efforts to provide only clean energy from by 2045, the company said on Tuesday.

Idaho Power in a press release said its 2021 Integrated Resource Plan submitted to the Idaho Public Utilities Commission moves the business away from coal and toward renewables, battery storage, energy efficiency and additional energy. which will come with the completion of a transmission line connecting to the Pacific Northwest.

The 214-page document explains how the company will meet the energy demand in an area of ​​24,000 square miles (62,000 square kilometers) in southern Idaho and eastern Oregon as its number customers will drop from 600,000 to nearly 850,000 by 2040.

Idaho Power is allowed to operate as a state-regulated monopoly in exchange for producing a reliable and affordable energy supply in the region. The 20-year plan, updated and submitted every two years, tells state regulators how they intend to meet these responsibilities, while balancing costs and risks.

The latest plan comes as Idaho Power sees an increase in customer numbers and demand for electricity, with the company noting that it hit a record power demand on June 30 with a peak-hour load of 3,751 megawatts. One megawatt is the amount of energy needed to power about 770 midsize homes in Idaho Power’s service area, according to the company.

“This plan is a major step in ensuring that we can continue to serve our customers with the reliable and affordable energy they need while moving towards our goal of delivering 100% clean energy by 2045”, Mitch Colburn , vice president of planning, engineering and construction, said in a statement.

The company’s latest plan, which was also submitted to the Oregon Utilities Commission, cuts coal two years earlier than the plan it submitted in 2019. The company notes that the new plan also differs by including significant amounts of clean energy resources with 700 megawatts of power. wind turbine, 1,405 megawatts of solar power and 1,685 megawatts of battery storage. The 2019 plan called for no wind resources, about two-thirds less solar power, and only a small fraction of battery storage.

The company also added a new chapter on climate change to the report, examining various threats.

“In Idaho Power’s service area, climate-related risks are assessed in light of the severity potential of storms, lightning, droughts, heat waves, fires, floods and snow loads. The report says.

The climate change section also discusses the company’s goal of providing only clean energy, noting that the company’s “existing hydropower backbone” is a key part of this strategy.

The Company owns 17 hydroelectric facilities on the Snake River and its tributaries, with the Hells Canyon Complex on the Snake River providing approximately 70% of the Company’s hydroelectric generating capacity and 30% of its total generating capacity.

The company’s coal-fired power comes from the Jim Bridger Power Station near Rock Springs, Wyoming, and the Valmy Power Station near Valmy, Wyoming. Idaho Power’s plan includes converting two units of the Bridger plant from coal to natural gas by summer 2024, and phasing out a third unit of Bridger coal by the end of the year. year 2025 and another coal unit by 2028. It would also come out of a coal unit in Valmy in 2025.

Overall, the company’s energy mix in 2020 was 41.7% hydropower, 20.9% coal, 11.9% natural gas, 11.1% wind, 4.1 % solar and 2.9% geothermal, biomass and other sources. In addition, 7.4% came from purchases on the energy market.

The new plan also calls for the completion in 2026 of a power line connecting the company’s Hemingway substation southwest of Boise, Idaho, to Boardman, Oregon, an energy hub. The 500 kilovolt line would increase the capacity for energy exchange between the Pacific Northwest and Intermountain West. Idaho Power would own 45% of the project.

Regulators will issue a notice of the plan’s filing next week, opening a period for public comments and an opportunity for Idaho Power to respond to those comments, said Adam Rush, spokesperson for the Idaho Public Utilities Commission. After this process, the commission will issue a formal acknowledgment that the company has fulfilled its regulatory obligation to submit the plan.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration, Idaho’s average electricity price in 2019 ranked it among the five lowest states. The agency attributed this to the relatively inexpensive hydropower which accounted for 56% of the state’s electricity production that year. Nationally, only about 7% of US energy use comes from hydroelectric facilities.