Idaho Power eyes more solar. But here’s why clean energy remains a challenge

Idaho Power plans to make major increases in its solar and wind capacity as part of a phase-out of fossil fuels in the coming decades.

The changes come as renewables have become increasingly cost-competitive with other fuels and developers are eyeing Southern Idaho for more solar projects. Analysts have emphasized that massive increases in renewables on the electric grid are needed to wean the nation off of fossil fuels, and Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration set a goal of getting the U.S. to 100% clean electricity by 2035.

Researchers argue converting almost all of our energy needs to electricity is needed to prevent the worst effects of human-caused climate change, and likely requires more than doubling the nation’s electric grid capacity.

Idaho Power has a goal of relying on 100% clean energy by 2045. Today, its energy mix consists of more than 30% hydropower, 10% wind and less than 4% solar. One-third of its energy comes from natural gas and coal.

The company has recently pulled out of some of its coal-fired power plants, and has plans to leave coal behind by 2028. The company is also building large-scale battery storage systems in Owyhee and Elmore counties as part of an effort to increase the reliability of power distribution.

Southern Idaho is ripe for more solar installations, companies and academics say, meaning the Snake River Plain could see more projects in the coming years. Idaho still ranks in the bottom half of solar-producing states, according to the Energy Information Administration, a federal agency that collects data on power production.

“Southern Idaho is one of the better places in the country to put in solar,” said Brian Johnson, a professor of engineering at the University of Idaho, in part because of the amount of sunlight.

Last year, the largest solar project in Idaho, Jackpot Solar, came online, with a capacity of 120 megawatts, which is enough energy to power about 24,000 homes. That single 950-acre solar farm in Twin Falls County expanded the state’s solar capacity by 20%, to close to 740 megawatts.

The project was built by Duke Energy, a North Carolina-based public utility and developer. Duke has contracted to sell the power it generates at Jackpot to Idaho Power for 20 years.

Nearby the Jackpot Solar farm, Duke is building another 100-megawatt solar project, along with 60 megawatts of four-hour duration battery storage, with expected completion in 2024. Researchers have pointed to better storage technology as a necessity, since renewables like wind and solar can be less predictable than sources like coal plants and may not be able to directly supply sufficient energy during peak demand times.

Randy Wheeless, a spokesperson for Duke, told the Idaho Statesman that the company has plans to announce another Idaho solar project in the coming weeks.

Other investor-owned utilities in the state — Avista and Rocky Mountain Power, which is part of PacifiCorp — are also working to transition to more renewable sources of energy.

“Idaho right now is very attractive to us, and Idaho Power is looking to move to be more renewable-focused, so that bodes well for more projects in the future,” Wheeless said.

Idaho Power plans for more solar, wind power

Over the next 20 years, Idaho Power wants to integrate another 1,400 megawatts of solar power and 700 more megawatts of wind into its system, said Mitch Colburn, the company’s vice president of planning, engineering and construction. Company documents also showed the utility’s plans for 1,685 megawatts of storage.

But Colburn told the Statesman even those additions are unlikely to get the company to fully clean energy, and that further innovation is needed.

“I don’t think there is a 100% clean energy future with only wind and solar and battery storage additions,” Colburn said. “We need additional capacity types of resources in addition to those resources.”

Some of those improvements could include better battery storage technology that lasts longer, as well as other sources like geothermal, nuclear or hydrogen.

Further complicating implementation is that some of the projects themselves can be highly controversial.

A proposal near Twin Falls to build a large-scale wind farm has gotten significant opposition locally over the potential farm’s proximity to the Minidoka National Historic Site, where thousands of Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II. Advocates say the site is a memorial to the suffering at the camp.

The project is under review at the Bureau of Land Management.

In a statement, the company proposing the wind farm, LS Power, said it hopes to “honor” the site’s history and noted that the BLM has proposed two alternatives that would set the turbines between five and 10 miles away from the site.

Transmission lines play critical role in clean energy

While proposals for new renewable development are cropping up, a major aspect of getting Idaho’s grid prepared for a future without fossil fuels is the expansion of transmission lines. Transmission lines, which are wires that connect a solar farm to customers, on a large scale allow power producers to buy and sell electricity from other regions.

Because renewable energy often relies on weather patterns, connecting regions can help smooth out irregularities — and provide backup — when power sources are intermittent.

“Transmission is a fundamental, foundational element of a clean energy future,” Colburn said.

Those power lines can extend for hundreds of miles, crossing into many local and federal jurisdictions. Getting the required approvals from local agencies can take years and has delayed the buildout of renewables across the country.

Idaho Power is in the process of building a 300-mile transmission line connecting Idaho to power sources in Oregon. The company first proposed the project in 2008 — more than 15 years ago. It’s expected to come online in 2026.

In the 1990s, Idaho Power received approval to build a 500-mile transmission line into Nevada, later selling the rights to the project to LS Power, the same company trying to develop the Lava Ridge wind farm. Over 20 years later, about half the line has been built, with the rest expected to be completed in 2026, spokesperson Amy Schutte said.

“There’s still definitely a degree almost anywhere of ‘not in my backyard’ thinking,” Johnson said.

Projects cause tension among environmentalists

The push to rapidly expand renewable energy capacity has meant tough decisions and tensions for environmentalists, who have long pushed to prevent industrial-scale logging, mining and other development projects in an effort to protect endangered species and wildlife habitat.

For the Idaho Conservation League, the largest environmental group in the state, that means “trying to get to yes” on more projects, Justin Hayes, the group’s executive director, said at a panel discussion at the Society of Environmental Journalists conference in Boise earlier this month.

“We are trying very hard to work with communities and developers to identify projects that can be done well, in places that can sustain them, (that are) operationally done in sensitive ways to the community and ecology there,” Hayes said.

Part of the problem is that a lot of the regulations that govern where and how energy projects can be built are based on federal laws that are 50 years old, he said. Individual states also have many different policies.

Without clearer direction on renewable power projects, it’s difficult for agencies to quickly assess ecological impacts while still allowing local communities space to engage.

“It’s a square peg in a round hole to fit what we need to do into those existing laws,” Brad Heusinkveld, an energy policy associate at the Idaho Conservation League, told the Statesman.

“The environmental community — and I put myself in here — they built their bread and butter off of spotted owls, box turtles and these (endangered species). How is this community shifting to like, holy (expletive), we need to develop megawatt-scale wind farms in under two to three years.”

Idaho policies create barriers for renewables

Unlike some other states, Idaho has no carbon-neutral goals. Some state policies have prevented localities from trying to encourage higher efficiency or more renewable sourcing.

But the interconnectedness of utilities that cross state lines means that the policies of nearby states still affect Idaho.

“Washington, Oregon, California, Colorado all have very ambitious goals to decarbonize their electricity system, and so that’s changing the industry across the West,” Dr. Stephanie Lenhart, of the Energy Policy Institute at Boise State University, told the Statesman.

In recent years, changes at Idaho’s Public Utilities Commission — which regulates the public utilities in the state — have altered some of the incentives on renewable energy.

While a majority of existing solar and wind developments in Idaho were built under a federal program that dates from the 1970s, requiring utilities to buy the energy they produce, the commission scaled back the contract lengths eight years ago. For larger projects, instead of negotiating a sale price every 20 years, those prices are now reset every two years.

The change has discouraged developers from building that type of wind and solar energy, said Peter Richardson, who leads Idaho Energy Freedom, a group that promotes clean energy. Since the adoption of the two-year renegotiation period, “no new wind or solar projects” of that type have been built in the state, Richardson said.

Idaho Power, which pushed for the changes along with the state’s other investor-owned utilities, argued that the lengthy price agreements led to higher costs for consumers that did not reflect the market.

In an email, Utilities Commission spokesperson Adam Rush said that because the state has no renewable standards, the commission is tasked only with “determining fair, just and reasonable rates, and ensuring the delivery of safe, reliable and efficient utility services.”

Utilities and other groups have also gotten into disagreements over rooftop solar.

Idaho Power wants to cut in half the amount it must pay customers who sell their rooftop solar back to the grid, arguing that the current rate is too high. Meanwhile, rooftop solar advocates are pushing to keep the price where it is and argue that higher costs will disincentivize people from buying rooftop panels, which have the potential to reduce some of the need for large renewable energy farms. Rooftop solar in the state expanded by an estimated 60 megawatts between 2021 and 2022, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade group.

In Idaho, a new law limits the ability of cities like Boise to implement stricter energy code standards.

In an email, Richard Stover, the administrator of the governor’s Office of Energy and Mineral Resources, said Gov. Brad Little aims to reduce “administrative and regulatory burdens” rather than “creating obstacles for private investment.”

Stover pointed to new legislation that expanded the definition of renewable energy to include nuclear, battery storage and hydrogen, allowing power providers to issue bonds for development of these technologies.

While developers work to boost renewable energy production, local and federal policymakers are also looking to shift how consumers use energy, like swapping out gas-powered cars with electric vehicles. In Boise, the city requires new residential construction to include capacity for electric vehicle charging, and city officials plan to encourage builders to construct homes that only use electricity for all heating and cooking needs.

“It’s really going to be a fundamental rethinking of how we consume and produce energy,” Lenhart said.