Ahead of schedule and within budget, Rocky Mountain Power has energized the first section of Energy Gateway, an extensive transmission expansion that within the next 10 years will add 2,000 miles to the company’s high capacity transmission lines to meet the growing customer need for electricity, enhance service reliability and keep energy costs as low as possible.

The newly constructed section extends 46-miles from the Ben Lomond substation, located in Box Elder County, Utah, to the Terminal substation, located near the Salt Lake City International Airport. The process to energize this section began March 19 and was completed March 30.

By the end of 2010, the northern section of this segment will be energized, extending an additional 90 miles north to the Populus substation near Downey, Idaho. This will complete the first full segment of PacifiCorp’s Energy Gateway Transmission Expansion Project, first announced in May 2007.

“It has been two decades since any major additions were made to the main transmission grid in the West,” said Richard Walje, president of Rocky Mountain Power. “When completed, this and other transmission additions will ensure customers in the states we serve have access to electricity at reasonable prices. It will allow the company to better serve the economic development needs of these states, which is essential to maintaining a healthy economy. The company’s increasing investment in generation from wind, natural gas and geothermal sources makes expansion of transmission systems to move this energy a critical component of our long-range plans to ensure reliable service for customers.”

The development of new transmission lines and substations has become a national priority. Especially in the western U.S., studies have indicated substantial investment is required to build the additional transmission line necessary to serve the growing electrical needs of the 1 million customers of Rocky Mountain Power in Utah, Wyoming and Idaho and the 730,000 customers of Pacific Power in Oregon, Washington and California.

The new transmission lines and expanded substations will also provide for improved reliability and operational flexibility, enabling the utility to better integrate its recent investments in wind and natural gas electricity generation with existing low-cost coal and hydroelectric power plants. The added transmission capacity also will provide customers access to future generation resources as their needs grow.

The Energy Gateway segments are currently in planning, siting or construction across the six-state PacifiCorp service area.

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June 2010 News Team
Publisher: Chuck Meyer
Editor: John Rozsa