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Idaho Power is one of the three big power companies that covers a portion of Idaho -- they serve the southwest, Avista is in the northwest, and PacifiCorp is in

Idaho Power is one of the three big power companies that covers a portion of Idaho -- they serve the southwest, Avista is in the northwest, and PacifiCorp is in spots in the southeast [1]. Idaho Power has been, for several years, planning to pull out as a partner from the 3 coal power plants it has an ownership share in: North Valmy in NV, Jim Bridger in WY, and Boardman in OR [2]. Jim Bridger will have soon been due for an expensive upgrade because of environmental regulations, Boardman has seen consistent pressure from Oregon activists and regulators to bring the shutdown date closer, and North Valmy has seen less and less use because the other owner has succeeded meeting most of the Northern Nevada demand with a robust mix of natgas and solar, but also has fresh interconnects with Southern Nevada and Idaho. In 2018, Idaho Power also joined [3] the Western Energy Imbalance Market, which streamlines realtime energy trading in the WECC interconnect. As time goes on and coal plants are retired, coal's share will decline in the energy mix, and there will be an increasing amount of quasi-'baseload' solar available to buy in the energy market. And for the times in the day when the solar generation drops off and natgas plants would often be the next sellers, Idaho Power has plenty of its own hydro it can deploy to compensate. But note that despite their well-situated position with renewables, their target for 100% renewables is still 2045 -- relatively far off. [1] (PDF) https://oemr.idaho.gov/wp-content/uploads/3.6.18-Energy-Landscape-2018.pdf https://oemr.idaho.gov/wp-content/uploads/3.6.18-Energy-Land... [2] http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2017/sep/16/power-company-maps-energy-plan-for-idaho-and-orego/ http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2017/sep/16/power-company-m... [3] https://www.idahopower.com/news/idaho-power-customers-will-benefit-regional-energy-market/ https://www.idahopower.com/news/idaho-power-customers-will-b...

sremani 8y ago
>> and for the times in the day when the solar generation drops of The problem with areas north of 42N is not that times of day.. its the times of year! Jun 22 - 15:30 hrs of sunlight Dec 22 - 9:00 hrs of sunlight there are 206 sunny days per year in Boise (could not find twin falls).
- philipkglass 8y ago
  The seasonality of solar is reasonably well matched to Idaho's consumption patterns. The 3 months with the highest demand for fossil generated electricity in Idaho are July, August, and September. This is in contrast to e.g. Germany where wintertime demand is highest. Source: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/state/ https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/state/ Awkwardly, this excellent data is all in Excel files. I got the numbers from Monthly data from Electric Power Monthly - Fossil Fuel Consumption for Electricity Generation by Year, Industry Type and State, using sheet 2018_Preliminary inside the spreadsheet.
- niftich 8y ago
  Solar on the WEIM market [1][2], which (given more and more utilities joining) is more and more of the actual interconnected infrastructure within the WECC [3] -- including plants down south in CA, AZ, NV, NM. The scenario to envision is that there will be times when solar is cheap enough to buy on the market that a hydro-heavy utility can ''reduce'' hydro generation during the day, and timeshift that same generation into later hours when solar drops off to sell it for profit. A solar- or natgas-heavy, hydro-poor utility (e.g. San Diego Gas & Electric [5], NV Energy [6][7]) can't do the same, they have to invest in storage, buy power from elsewhere (where the exact source is abstracted away), or spin up more natgas at peak times. The latter two are the most popular solutions now, but regulations in California are now forcing [4] the first issue in CA. [1] https://www.powermag.com/how-does-the-western-energy-imbalance-market-work/ https://www.powermag.com/how-does-the-western-energy-imbalan... [2] https://www.westerneim.com/ https://www.westerneim.com/ [3] https://www.wecc.org/ https://www.wecc.org/ [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16560856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16560856 [5] https://sites.uci.edu/energyobserver/2018/12/28/comparison-of-california-utilities-power-sources-for-2017/ https://sites.uci.edu/energyobserver/2018/12/28/comparison-o... [6] https://www.nvenergy.com/about-nvenergy/our-company/power-supply https://www.nvenergy.com/about-nvenergy/our-company/power-su... [7] https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=NV https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=NV

sremani 8y ago

>> and for the times in the day when the solar generation drops of The problem with areas north of 42N is not that times of day.. its the times of year! Jun 22 - 15:30 hrs of sunlight Dec 22 - 9:00 hrs of sunlight there are 206 sunny days per year in Boise (could not find twin falls).

philipkglass 8y ago
The seasonality of solar is reasonably well matched to Idaho's consumption patterns. The 3 months with the highest demand for fossil generated electricity in Idaho are July, August, and September. This is in contrast to e.g. Germany where wintertime demand is highest. Source: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/state/ https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/state/ Awkwardly, this excellent data is all in Excel files. I got the numbers from Monthly data from Electric Power Monthly - Fossil Fuel Consumption for Electricity Generation by Year, Industry Type and State, using sheet 2018_Preliminary inside the spreadsheet.
niftich 8y ago
Solar on the WEIM market [1][2], which (given more and more utilities joining) is more and more of the actual interconnected infrastructure within the WECC [3] -- including plants down south in CA, AZ, NV, NM. The scenario to envision is that there will be times when solar is cheap enough to buy on the market that a hydro-heavy utility can ''reduce'' hydro generation during the day, and timeshift that same generation into later hours when solar drops off to sell it for profit. A solar- or natgas-heavy, hydro-poor utility (e.g. San Diego Gas & Electric [5], NV Energy [6][7]) can't do the same, they have to invest in storage, buy power from elsewhere (where the exact source is abstracted away), or spin up more natgas at peak times. The latter two are the most popular solutions now, but regulations in California are now forcing [4] the first issue in CA. [1] https://www.powermag.com/how-does-the-western-energy-imbalance-market-work/ https://www.powermag.com/how-does-the-western-energy-imbalan... [2] https://www.westerneim.com/ https://www.westerneim.com/ [3] https://www.wecc.org/ https://www.wecc.org/ [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16560856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16560856 [5] https://sites.uci.edu/energyobserver/2018/12/28/comparison-of-california-utilities-power-sources-for-2017/ https://sites.uci.edu/energyobserver/2018/12/28/comparison-o... [6] https://www.nvenergy.com/about-nvenergy/our-company/power-supply https://www.nvenergy.com/about-nvenergy/our-company/power-su... [7] https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=NV https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=NV