A big Idaho hydropower utility company is launching a major experiment with solar power. The Idaho Public Utilities Commission has just approved two new contracts for solar power that will add about 120 megawatts to Idaho Power Company's generation sources. That's enough to power roughly 83,000 average homes.
Moreover, Idaho Power is asking the commission to approve another 11 new solar projects that could produce more than 270 megawatts at a cost of about $1-billion dollars over 20 years.
Solar power projects have been slow to take off in Idaho which generates about four-fifths of its relatively low cost electricity from hydropower. Idaho Power company, for example, which serves the Snake River area, owns 17 power generating dams along the river system.
The two new solar projects are the first of their type since the state power agency adopted a new pricing method for intermittent power projects such as solar and wind under provisions of federal law. The idea is to create an open market for power generators which can sell electricity to utilities at the same cost they'd pay for new fossil fuel plants.
One of the newly approved solar farms is near Boise - the other is in sparsely populated Owyhee County.
