Hearings set for Idaho Power gas plant
The Idaho Public Utilities Commission will hold a public hearing July 14 on Idaho Power Company’s application to build a 330-megwatt natural gas-fired power plant four miles south of New Plymouth.
Called the Langley Gulch power plant, officials at Idaho Power said the facility is needed to increase the reliability of its system, allow for future growth and will enable it to bring more intermittent renewable resources like wind onto the grid.
“As we build these renewables and incorporate them into our system we need to have resources with the flexibility to keep the system balanced,” Idaho Power’s General Manager of Power Production Vernon Porter told the Idaho Business Review in an interview in June. “When the wind’s not blowing, what’s going to fill the gaps in?”
The $427.4 million plant would occupy a 137-acre site in Payette County and, if approved by regulators, would be operational by December 2012.
A coalition of groups has challenged the power plant, filing a Motion to Stay for 10 months on the grounds that several key factors have changed since Idaho Power’s initial application in March, and should be taken into account before any decisions are made.
The coalition, which includes the Industrial Customers of Idaho Power, the Idaho Irrigation Pumpers Association, the Snake River Alliance, the Idaho Conservation League and the Northwest & Intermountain Power Producers, lists among its concerns: a recent vote by Idaho Power shareholders to reduce greenhouse gases, Idaho Power’s decision to delay filing an energy resource planning document to the end of the year, the ongoing recession, and a lack of sufficient data showing the effectiveness of Idaho Power’s demand response programs in reducing overall demand.
“All the intervenor stakeholders in this docket believe that the Commission should exercise ‘extreme caution’ before reaching a decision on Langley Gulch,” stated Peter Richardson, attorney for the Industrial Customers of Idaho Power. “…In proposing a ‘Stay’ in the proceedings, we hope to convince the Commission to call a time out and direct the Company to reconcile recent events with its insistence that Langley Gulch is urgently needed.”
The commission decided to go ahead with the hearing despite the coalition’s concerns, saying there will always be uncertainty about future conditions, “However, we can’t allow that uncertainty to paralyze us. There are very real consequences to the requested stay.”
Idaho Power said delaying the project will increase the costs of the project and jeopardize its ability to serve customers by 2012 and beyond.
“From a reliability perspective there’s some pretty big impacts,” Porter said. “We’ve got contracts lined up with contractors and equipment suppliers; if we delay then it’ll be more costly to try to keep the project moving forward.”
Commission officials stated that the groups can renew their motion at the start of the technical hearing, which is also scheduled for July 14.
The technical hearing is set to begin at 9:30 a.m., while the public hearing is scheduled for 7 p.m. Both hearings will be conducted at the commission’s hearing room, 472 W. Washington St. in Boise.
