Planning for Future Power Needs in the Sun Valley Area – Final Report

The Community Advisory Committee which has worked with Idaho Power to develop a “Wood River Electrical Plan” over the past year has finished its final report and will present it to the public this coming Wednesday evening in Hailey. The meeting will start at 6:00 p.m. in the Community Campus auditorium with a presentation on the recommendation and will follow with an open house.

As I have stated in my previous reports on this process, the purpose of the project is to create a clear and documented electrical energy plan to serve the load needs of the Wood River Valley from now through build out of the valley. Our goal was to make sure the report is clear and concise – something that will make sense to the public in terms of need, reliability, redundancy, cost, and protection of view corridors. You can read our Final Report by clicking here, and get the Appendices by clicking here.

The challenge of course, and of particular interest for the people I represent, is getting reliable sources of power into the upper Wood River Valley where it is heavily used to support the tourism and second home industry. With only one 138 kV transmission line serving this end of the valley from Hailey, reliability is a major concern, especially during the peak winter season. As the use of electrical power continues to increase with housing and hotel growth, expanded snowmaking, chairlifts and gondolas, so does the need for an additional transmission line. Because we value the beauty of our area, there are visual considerations which we must take into account as well. All of these factors went into the Committee’s recommendation which is to follow Highway 75 along the existing right-of-way to Ketchum.

It was felt that the visual impacts of a new 138 kV transmission line from Hailey to Ketchum can be minimized to the largest extent in this highway corridor as opposed to running it along steep hillsides and ridgelines. This route provides many options for underground or above ground lines or combinations of both. It is also good to know that such a line does not have to be like the massive structures of the existing Hailey to Ketchum transmission line.  Here are a couple photo renderings of what some above ground options might look like along Highway 75 near East Fork Road, with a picture of the existing distribution line for comparison (note that “distribution” circuits are those which bring power to your neighborhoods and homes and “transmission” circuits are the ones which move power from city to city):

The meeting this Wednesday, March 12, 2008, in Hailey is just the beginning of a public process which will give all of us the opportunity to weigh in on how and when this plan may eventually be implemented.

My seven previous reports on the WREP are available here (#7), here (#6), here (#5), here (#4), here (#3), here (#2), and here (#1).

As always, I will continue to report on the progress of this plan and you can also follow it at the Wood River Electrical Plan website provided by Idaho Power. The website has a great deal of information, including copies of all the presentations and minutes of our meetings.

Technology and the Environment

To kick off the New Year, I was thinking today about how we could do some positive things in the City of Sun Valley to improve our environmental image in the resort world. Right or wrong in the grading, the poor ranking the Sun Valley Resort has received the past two years from the Ski Area Citizens’ Coalition has probably not helped the tourism business for the valley from the growing number of environmentally conscious travelers which we so heavily depend on in this highly competitive business.

The Sun Valley City Council began 2007 by passing a Resolution adopting the U.S. Conference of Mayor’s Climate Protection Agreement. That was a big step for our City, but the remainder of the year showed little follow through. Our neighbor Hailey was very successful in preparing and implementing a climate protection plan as this story by Gary Stivers at SunValleyOnline shows. I am hoping Hailey’s leadership will rub off on us and others.

Our local economy is significantly tied to the climate – both in the winter and summer. The warmer it gets, the shorter the ski seasons are becoming, and the larger the forest fires are becoming, the harder they are to fight and the longer they last. Both have already had impacts on our tourist visits. Our major competitors are taking significant strides to do something about protecting the climate (see Vail, Aspen, Park City, Jackson Hole). Even the little ski area in Montana where I learned to ski as a kid, Lost Trail Powder Mountain, runs its operations on biodiesel. Our neighbor to the south, Nevada and in particular the tourist mecca of Las Vegas has been finding out that clean energy and sustainable development pays off as well, especially in down real estate markets, as this story tells. It’s time for action in Sun Valley, not more studies, talk, finger crossing, wishful thinking or denial.

Being involved in various technology businesses, I thought about the marriage of tech and the environment. In my research I came across a website/blog called “EcoGeek.” They have a great site with ideas, insight and links to a resource of practical information. As they say, “EcoGeek devotes its pages to exploring the symbiosis between nature and technology.”

A story EcoGeek did the other day titled “7 Technologies that will Save the Earth in 2008” caught my attention. It has some very practical ideas and thoughts that can help improve our lives while also making sure that we don’t mess up the Earth at the same time. Give it a look.

Hopefully, the City of Sun Valley has the political will necessary to do the right things to make certain our local economy is strong long into the future by ensuring that our environment is also strong.

Planning for Future Power Needs in the Sun Valley Area – Part VII

The Community Advisory Committee, working with Idaho Power to develop a “Wood River Electrical Plan,” held its seventh and potentially final meeting last week. My six previous reports are available here (#6), here (#5), here (#4), here (#3), here (#2), and here (#1).

The purpose of the project is to create a clear and documented electrical energy plan to serve the load needs of the Wood River Valley from now through build out of the valley. The opportunities for tapping into alternative sources of energy are very good as they become available. The challenge of course, is getting the power into the upper valley where it is heavily used to support the tourism and second home industry. As the use increases, so does the need for transmission lines, so there are visual trade-offs which must be considered.

The purpose of the seventh meeting was to review the draft plan and discuss next steps for its introduction to the community. The Committee determined that the draft could use some revisions in its presentation to be more easily understood by the public and that the text could be expanded to better address conservation and alternative energy issues discussed by the Committee.

We had a considerable discussion re-checking and verifying the recommendations and assumptions made in earlier meetings regarding the alternatives being proposed. Our goal is to make sure the report is clear and concise – something that will make sense to the public in terms of need, reliability, redundancy, cost, protection of view corridors, etc. before Idaho Power begins public hearings.

Idaho Power staff will revise the draft, we will then give it another review and the hope is to present it sometime after the Christmas holidays during a public open house meeting(s).

As always, I will continue to report on our progress and you can also follow it at the Wood River Electrical Plan website provided by Idaho Power. The website has a great deal of information, including copies of all the presentations and minutes of our meetings.

Sidebar – Solar Possibilities:

The world’s third-largest solar power plant is located south of here in Boulder City, Nevada. The plant, owned by a Spanish company, produces around 64 MW (Mega Watts) of electricity which is enough to power 40,000 homes. It is located on 350 acres. (As a footnote – the Wood River Valley currently uses just under 120 MW at peak load in the winter.)

Here is a link to an Editorial in the Las Vegas Sun about the plant from this past Sunday.

Here is a link to “The Energy Blog” which has a story about the Boulder City solar plant.

Sidebar – Wind Possibilities:

Speaking of the Las Vegas area – on a trip this past spring, I came across this wind turbine in the backyard of a home in southwest Vegas near Blue Diamond Road. Thinking it was a novel way of using alternative energy I had to snap the picture.

 

In case you didn’t see my first report on the Wood River Electrical Plan meeting, it contains links to three videos taken at the Fossil Gulch Wind Park near Hagerman. The southern part of Idaho seems to be an excellent location for “wind farms” given the topography and sustained wind flows. Click here to see the videos.

Planning for Future Power Needs in the Sun Valley Area – Part VI

The Community Advisory Committee, working with Idaho Power to develop a “Wood River Electrical Plan,” held its sixth meeting during the last week of June. My five previous reports are available here (#5), here (#4), here (#3), here (#2), and here (#1).

The purpose of the project is to create a clear and documented electrical energy plan to serve the load needs of the Wood River Valley from now through build out.

During the sixth meeting the Committee worked on screening the alternative scenarios we previously developed to determine a consensus recommendation for the most feasible alternative for each section of the planning area and for the overall plan. Using criteria and goals discussed in my previous reports, we narrowed the recommendations for three areas: 1) the southern transmission stations of Midpoint (near Shoshone) and King (near Hagerman) up to the Bellevue triangle area, 2) the Bellevue triangle area to the Wood River Transmission station (just north of Hailey), and 3) from Wood River Transmission station to the Ketchum/Sun Valley Substation (next to the Sun Valley Red Barn).

 138 kV Transmission Line          Twin 138 kV Underground Lines

We spent a great deal of time discussing the costs of each alternative, the costs of undergrounding versus above ground lines, the costs of easements, the environmental impacts, the visual impacts, and probably the most important factor, the need for additional lines in relationship to growth, demand, reliability and redundancy. Idaho Power and its engineers will now take our work and hammer out these issues in relationship to the alternatives we formulated. We will meet again in a couple of months to review their findings and see if a draft report will be in an acceptable condition to present to the public this fall. This will then lead to a whole round of public meetings and full public discussion and input on the recommendation.

The recent “Red Bridge Fire” near Shoshone took out a portion of the Midpoint Transmission station and then the transmission line to Hailey. Here is a good article from the Associated Press on the fire and what it did to Midpoint (it appeared in the Idaho Press-Tribune). It points to the vulnerability we face here in the Wood River Valley. For several days during and after the fire we were being supplied by the King transmission line only, a line built in 1962 and not capable of handling our entire load in peak conditions. In the north end of the valley, we only have the one line from Hailey to the Ketchum/Sun Valley Substation. There is no redundancy or backup for that line. Our peak load up here is in the winter. One can only imagine what an extended outage would do to the health and safety of our north valley in the cold of the winter, not to mention the economy.

As always, I will continue to report on our progress and you can also follow it at the Wood River Electrical Plan website provided by Idaho Power. The website has a great deal of information, including copies of all the presentations and minutes of our meetings.

* * * Added Bonus * * * 

The Sun Valley Fire Department assisted in fighting the “Red Bridge Fire” and two of our men, Ray Franco and Joe Richardson made the cover of the Twin Falls Times-News in an excellent photo with one of our engines.

Green is the Color of Money

There are those special occasions in one’s life when you run across someone or something that really inspires you. This past January, during the Frank Church Conference in Boise which focused on global warming, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to run into two such people on the same day. The first was Vice President Al Gore. I wrote about that excellent experience in a previous blog which you can read by clicking here.

The other individual I had the great pleasure to meet that day was Gary Christensen. Gary is the highly successful owner of Christensen Corp., a commercial real estate development firm based in Boise. He built the new Banner Bank building in downtown Boise. I met Gary at a reception for Al Gore held in the Banner Bank building. Earlier that day Gary gave an excellent lecture entitled “Green is the Color of Money – Saving the Planet for Fun and Profit” at the Frank Church Conference.

The Banner Bank building was awarded the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum Certified status by the U.S. Green Building Council, the first in Idaho. Gary Christensen is a businessman who has figured out that developing “green” buildings is a money making proposition, in addition to something that is good for the environment. The Banner Bank building is making a 32% return on investment, uses 65% less electricity and 80% less water than comparable new commercial buildings. I was impressed with my tour of the building, especially the quality of the air circulation and ease of changing out tenants. Click here for an excellent profile on the Banner Bank project.

After understanding how building “green” can mean larger profits to the bottom line, I suspect we will be seeing these types of projects here in the Wood River Valley in the near future. There have been some excellent LEED residential projects completed in the valley and with the signing of the Climate Protection Agreement, I hope we see many more. It is nice to see developers not only making money, but making it in ways that benefit society as well.

Planning for Future Power Needs in the Sun Valley Area – Part V

Last week the Community Advisory Committee developing a “Wood River Electrical Plan” held its fifth meeting. My four previous reports are available here, here, here, and here.

At the fifth meeting of the Citizens Advisory Committee I observed an amazing amount of sincere diligence among all the members in evaluating the potential alternatives in front of us. I am impressed by how everyone is concerned for what is best for our greater community in the long-term. There is a great deal of thought and concern going into how to supply reliable power to the Wood River Valley, how to make it cost-effective, how to protect our environment to the greatest extent possible while doing so, and at the same time evaluating alternative sources of energy and conservation to reduce the demand and possible need for new transmission lines. At the end of the day, even though we have been at this for five months, we all decided we needed more time to consider the alternatives in order to make better recommendations.

We are still on track for a planned public release of a preliminary plan in mid- to late summer this year. This will lead to full public discussion and input on the proposal.

As always, I will continue to report on our progress and you can also follow it at the Wood River Electrical Plan website provided by Idaho Power. The website has a great deal of information, including copies of all the presentations and minutes of our meetings.

Planning for Future Power Needs in the Sun Valley Area – Part IV

The fourth meeting of the Community Advisory Committee developing a “Wood River Electrical Plan” was held this week. This is my fourth progress report on that effort. The previous reports are available here, here, and here.

It has become apparent that in order to meet the future demands for electrical power and have a reliable source during peak demand times in the Wood River Valley and especially in the Sun Valley/Ketchum area, it will be necessary to add transmission lines. This is going to be a challenge as our area is limited by terrain constraints and we need to consider the value of our important viewsheds. Having a reliable source of power to support our key tourist and second home economy, especially during the winter, is vital. There is currently no redundancy for the north end of the Wood River Valley.

At this month’s meeting we finally got our feet wet and took a close look at the maps in an effort to try to identify potential areas where new power transmission lines could be located given the important siting criteria and goals we have established in previous meetings. We came up with several possible scenarios that will be evaluated by Idaho Power based on GIS (Geographic Information Systems) information for further refinement and consideration at our next meeting.

As mentioned in my previous reports, this process is on track for a planned public release of a preliminary plan in mid to late summer this year. This will lead to full public discussion and input on the proposal.

As always, I will continue to report on our progress and you can also follow it at the Wood River Electrical Plan website provided by Idaho Power. The website has a great deal of information, including copies of all the presentations and minutes of our meetings.

Planning for Future Power Needs in the Sun Valley Area – Part III

The Community Advisory Committee held its third meeting in the process of working toward developing a “Wood River Electric Plan” this past week. This is a follow-up to my reports on the first two meetings, discussed in my January 20, 2007 blog post and my February 18, 2007 blog post.

The Committee continued its efforts to learn more about the electrical system, this time focusing closer to home – on the Wood River Valley substations and transmission lines. We spent considerable time discussing current peak demand and looking at future peak loads based on Valley build out estimates.

We also worked on drafting criteria that will be used in evaluating the eventual options for the Electric Plan. The criteria will be lead by the goals which came out of our sharing of initial issues and concerns from the second meeting. The draft principal goals include:

•   Reliable Power
•   New Infrastructure Design
•   Energy Conservation
•   Environment
•   Political Support
•   Cost Effectiveness

Our monthly meetings will continue through June with a planned public release of the preliminary plan scheduled for mid to late summer. I will continue to report on our progress and you can also follow it at the Wood River Electrical Plan website provided by Idaho Power.

Going Solar in Sun Valley

It’s a very small step, but a step in the right direction. This week we went solar in our home by starting to charge our cell phones, iPod’s, cameras, and PDA’s completely with energy from the sun.

 

We no longer have to plug any of these mobile devices into the electrical outlet in the wall. This little solar collector from Solio will charge the device in the same time it would take if plugged into the wall.

 

 

Combined with the compact florescent bulbs we have been converting to over the past couple of years, the lower thermostat setting, fewer lights on in the evenings, and fewer trips in the car, we are starting to do our part. As I said, these are all small steps, but if everyone takes a couple of them, we can’t help but leave this place a little better for the next generation.

 

Here is a link to some simple things we can all do to help slow down global warming:

 

            StopGlobalWarming.org – Action Items

 

And a link to some great gift ideas which can save energy:

 

            Gift Ideas to Save Energy

 

Next time: “Big Steps Going Solar in Sun Valley”

 

Planning for Future Power Needs in the Sun Valley Area – Part II

Last week the Community Advisory Committee held its second meeting in the process of working toward developing a “Wood River Electric Plan.” As a follow-up to the first meeting, which I discussed in my January 20, 2007 blog post, the group continued its efforts to learn more about the electrical system and the regulatory process here in Idaho.

 

Toward the end of the meeting, the Committee members each shared initial issues and concerns regarding the current electrical system and what the future system here in the Wood River Valley may face. I expressed my principal concerns going forward:

1. Reliability and Redundancy – having a constant, reliable supply of energy to the north Wood River Valley is crucial to the success of our resort and tourist economy and for our full time residents.

2. Aesthetics – the undeveloped hillsides and scenic vistas are one of the major drawing cards to this area; new power lines should be sited so as to minimize the visual impact such as seen by the one currently running through Sun Valley and Elkhorn.

3. Conservation and Use of Alternative Energy Sources – in keeping with our cities’ efforts to fight global warming, the Plan should emphasize conservation and seek alternative local and regional sources; perhaps allowing for a smaller new supply line.

As promised, Idaho Power has put together a nice website with a great deal of information on what the Committee is looking at as we work toward a plan that can be presented to the general public for input and comment. Here is a direct link to the Wood River Electrical Plan effort.

 

We also discussed Idaho Power’s efforts towards energy conservation, or as they call it “demand-side management.” You might wonder why a profit making company would be interested in having their customers conserve in what they buy. I was skeptical until I learned of their efforts and how it benefits the electrical system. Here are a series of links to their website concerning various energy conservation ideas:

 

Energy Efficiency in Your Home 

Energy Efficiency in Your Business 

Energy Efficiency in Irrigation

Green Power                                           

 

Our group will continue to meet monthly through June with a planned public release of the preliminary plan scheduled for mid to late summer. I will continue to report on our progress and you can also follow it at the Wood River Electrical Plan website.

Planning for Future Power Needs in the Sun Valley Area

On January 18, 2007, a group of Wood River Valley citizens toured various electrical generation and transmission facilities throughout central and southern Idaho. This group is working as an advisory committee to Idaho Power in an effort to create a long-term electrical plan for the Valley. Our initial effort is to gain a base understanding of the opportunities and possible solutions for meeting future power supply needs, as well as reliability, redundancy and conservation issues.

One stop on the tour was at the Fossil Gulch Wind Park near Hagerman. It is a particularly impressive site with seven wind turbines capable of generating up to a total of 10 megawatts (10 MW) of electricity. Each wind turbine is over 200 feet tall. The park is expected to grow to around 40 wind turbines by the end of this year.

I took three videos at the wind park with my cell phone camera. This is truly amateur video, but at least you get the picture.

Click here to watch the Fossil Gulch Wind Park Videos

Shortly there will be a website detailing the progress of the Wood River Electrical Plan’s development. I look forward to considerable opportunity for general public involvement as the plan comes together over the next six months. I will keep you posted on this progress.