; please
email: jashworth@idahopower.com or write to:
Customer Relations and Research
P.O. Box 70
Boise, ID 83707
Power Reliability:
A Shared Responsibility
Custom Efficiency
Program Progress
Idaho Powers most cost-effective resource
is energy savings obtained from large
commercial and industrial customers. We
encourage customers to take advantage of
energy efficiency projects available to
them.
Our companys entire energy efficiency
effort in 2007 achieved the goal of 46,000
Megawatt hours (MWhrs). The Custom
Efficiency program achieved 36,000 MWhrs
of savings or more than half of the savings
of all Idaho Powers energy efficiency
programs combined
and at a lower cost.
While we congratulate our large power
customers for making the Custom Efficiency
program successful, we are aware that
plenty of opportunities to increase energy
efficiency among these customers still exist.
Idaho Power has excellent resources to
help you develop an energy efficiency plan.
We have hired an additional mechanical
engineer, Chris Pollow, to help with this
effort. We offer energy auditing services
by engineering firms and through our
Custom Efficiency program, financial
incentives that pay 12 cents per kilowatt
hour (kWhr) for the annual energy savings
for most projects, up to 70 percent of the
Connection
BUSINESS
See more Energy Savings on page 2
See more Power Reliability on page 2
L
A
RG
E
Power disruptions can be challenging,
frustrating and expensive to fix.
Achieving 100 percent reliability is
not possible with todays technology,
but making sure Idaho Powers system
is economically feasible is Idaho
Powers mission. To that end, Idaho
Power has made changes in the way
reliability is approached to be sure it
is done right.
Large commercial and industrial
customers characterize power
reliability (power outages and power
quality) using standards that are
different than other sectors, such as
residential, small commercial and
agricultural. Electrical standards
are generally accepted in the power
industry as standard measurements
for power reliability and are great
for keeping track of the number and
frequency of outages that are five
minutes or longer. However, just a
sag in voltage, often within tolerances
for delivered power, can cause an
industrial customers operation to shut
down. These sags can affect the process
controlling hardware, interrupting
plant operations for extended periods
of time.
In 2005 the Berkeley Lab estimated that
nationally the annual cost of power
interruptions was around $80 billion.
With a portion of those losses occurring
at customers sites in Idaho Powers
service area, we are making substantial
strides in reliability improvement.
There are three parties primarily
responsible for closing the gap
between bulk power deliveries and the
delicate needs of high tech production
equipment at a facility: Idaho Power,
the manufacturer of the high tech
equipment and our customer.
Idaho Power has reasonable and
adequate resources dedicated to
reducing power outages and making
improvements in the quality of the
power delivered.
Manufacturers have recently adopted
higher tolerance standards for their
equipment and are working to build
their equipment to those tolerances.
Lastly, many of our customers have
utilized the services of the $4 billion
uninterruptible power supply industry
to fine tune the quality of power needed
at their facilities. Energy efficiency projects have resulted in the most energy savings among
Idaho Powers large power customers:
Energy Savings,
continued
The Most Popular
Energy Efficient Projects
Power Reliability,
continued lighting improvements by replacing
T12 fixtures or metal halide with T8 or
T5 HO (High Output) lighting systems, lowering head pressure on ammonia
refrigeration systems by increasing
condenser capacity and installing
variable speed drive compressors
and condenser fans (the best systems
achieve head pressures as low as
90 PSI), reducing the pressure in air compres-
sion systems through larger pipe sizing
and improved layout design including
additional receivers closer to com-
pressed air demand points, removing dampers and installing
variable speed drives on fan systems, removing throttling and installing
variable speed drive controllers on
pumping systems, and other innovative and production
specific projects.
These projects represent fast and easy
ways to achieve energy savings for
our large power customers. Idaho
Power will conduct a free walkthrough
audit at your facility to identify those
systems that have the most potential
for energy savings. Call your assigned
Idaho Power account representative
or Randy Thorn at 208-388-5624 to
schedule your audit.
Wilma Walp, Industrial/Large Commercial
Delivery Services Representative
PROJECT TYPE
NUMBER OF PROJECTS
% OF ALL PROJECTS
kWhrs SAVED
% OF ALL kWhrs
Lighting
23
26%
15,535,231
32%
Refrigeration
23
26%
12,080,225
25%
Compressed Air
11
12%
4,610,488
9%
Fan
8
9%
4,770,074
10%
Other
10
11%
7,516,206
15%
Pump
14
16%
4,488,685
9%
TOTAL
89
100%
49,000,909
100%
Energy Efficiency
Projects Completed
Since 2006
To address Idaho Powers part of
the problem, a Power Reliability
Department recently was formed to
specifically monitor reliability and
generate projects to maximize the
reliability of the system.
Improving power reliability costs
money. Therefore, additional financial
resources were identified for this
purpose.
Power reliability is a critical success
factor to ensure customer satisfaction.
We stress improvements in power
reliability values and track our progress
with other utilities across the nation.
Idaho Power is committed to
reliability providing the best power
quality possible at a reasonable price.
We balance that commitment by
encouraging customers to use available
technology to help adapt their more
sophisticated equipment to receive
power from our existing electrical
system. In turn, Idaho Power will
continue to make reasonable and
financially practical improvements to
our system to ensure power quality.
project cost. There is no dollar limit
on the incentive that Idaho Power pays
to achieve any and all cost effective
energy conservation.
Call your Idaho Power
representative today to
schedule a meeting to
explore all reasonable
energy efficiency projects
that are available.
If you are uncertain
who your representa-
tive is, call Idaho Power
at (208) 388-2323 or
1-800-488-6151.
2 Meeting the Power Demands
of Tomorrow
Challenge: Harmonic Voltage Distortion
Many business customers want to know
where we are going to get enough power
to handle the growth in Idaho and in
the Northwest particularly in light of
uncertain future carbon regulations. The
power industry today faces challenges and
this type of question is legitimate.
Idaho Power uses an extensive planning
process to determine future electrical
loads.
Every two years Idaho Power develops
an Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) that
provides a 20-year look ahead at growth
and the resources we will use to meet it.
An important aspect of this effort revolves
around the Integrated Resource Plan
Advisory Committee. This diverse group
represents customers, state and local
governments, the Idaho Public Utilities
Commission and the environmental
community. Their input helps shape the
direction of the IRP.
Idaho Power is working to reign in the
increasing problem of harmonic voltage
distortion being generated by non-
linear electronic loads such as variable
speed drives at customers facilities.
This ensures consistent and reliable
power service for all customers.
The first step locates the problem areas
using specialized power monitoring
equipment.
To help our customers comply with the
IEEE-519 Standard to control voltage
harmonics in their operation, Idaho
Power may set up a week-long harmonic
distortion monitoring session.
We began testing the facilities of our
largest Idaho Power customers during
the spring and summer of 2007 when
power consumption was at its peak. The
results to date show that between 20
and 25 percent of customers tested were
out of compliance with the standard.
We will continue to monitor industrial
and large commercial customers for
the next 18 months. In the event that
your operation is found to be out of
compliance we will work with you to
set up a plan to help your operation
comply.
Not correcting harmonic distortion
can cause equipment malfunction and
damage Idaho Powers system and your
operation. The faster we resolve it, the
better and more efficient both of our
operations become.
As a note of caution, it is important that
any piece of non-linear load has all the
necessary filtering in place as part of
its electrical connection configuration.
A load center where non-linear loads
exceed 30 percent of the total load
will require harmonic filtering. Line
reactors will not be sufficient to
maintain compliance.
As an example of this process, the 250
megawatt (MW) coal plant that was
included in the 2006 plan is no longer a
priority, while combined cycle natural gas
turbines have received more recog