Idaho Power Notified of Selection for $47 Million Smart Grid Investment Grant Funding Opportunity by Department of Energy

BOISE, Idaho, Oct. 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- IDACORP, Inc. (NYSE: IDA) subsidiary Idaho Power Company's Advanced Metering and Customer Systems projects were selected out of 400 received proposals for a potential award of $47 million in funding by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). In a letter to Idaho Power, the DOE stated it is "pleased to inform you that your application in response to the Smart Grid Investment Grant [Funding Opportunity Announcement] has been selected for award negotiations."

Idaho Power submitted a request for funding in early August to further develop Smart Grid systems by leveraging the Idaho Public Utilities Commission's approved Advanced Metering Infrastructure deployment. The projects outlined in Idaho Power's proposal involved a customer-centric approach to achieving measurable results in three integrated areas:

• Grid reliability
• Involved and informed participation by consumers
• Sustainability through integration of renewable resources
  

"Selection of Idaho Power's Advanced Metering and Customer Systems projects for potential stimulus funding is an opportunity to provide direct benefits to our owners and our customers," said Dan Minor, executive vice president of operations for Idaho Power. "Pursuing funding options, such as the Department of Energy's Smart Grid Investment Grant Program, that further our company's ability to provide reliable, fair-priced electric service demonstrates our commitment to our customers and owners. It would have been a missed opportunity not to respond to the DOE's funding opportunity given the breadth of our existing work in Advanced Metering."

Colleen Ramsey, manager of delivery construction for Idaho Power, has been selected to lead the Smart Grid project. "Especially during these recessionary economic times when we are focusing on operational efficiencies and doing more with less, we look for creative solutions to fund new technologies and innovations that enable our business to operate more efficiently and offer our customers the ability to make smarter energy choices," said Ramsey. "With the support of our consultant SAIC, a leader in utility technology solutions, we were able to highlight the value our proposal brings to the advancement of the Smart Grid through the development of Advance Metering Infrastructure, customer systems and transmission and distribution. These projects are intended to assist us in managing peak energy use, increasing energy efficiency, improving grid reliability and integrating renewable resources."

"On behalf of our company and customers, I particularly want to thank the Governor, the Public Utilities Commission and our Idaho congressional delegation for their support of our application," said Idaho Power President and CEO J. LaMont Keen.

The Department of Energy used a competitive, merit-based process to select qualified projects to receive $3.4 billion in matching grants for smart grid technology deployments. For more information on the DOE's Smart Grid initiative, please visit: http://www.energy.gov/news2009/8216.htm.

IDACORP, Inc. (NYSE: IDA), Boise, Idaho-based and formed in 1998, is a holding company comprised of Idaho Power Company, a regulated electric utility; IDACORP Financial, a holder of affordable housing projects and other real estate investments; and Ida-West Energy, an operator of small hydroelectric generation projects that satisfy the requirements of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978. IDACORP's origins lie with Idaho Power and operations beginning in 1916. Today, Idaho Power employs approximately 2,050 people to serve a 24,000 square-mile service area in southern Idaho and eastern Oregon. With 17 low-cost hydroelectric projects as the core of its generation portfolio, Idaho Power's 489,000 residential, business and agricultural customers pay some of the nation's lowest prices for electricity. To learn more about Idaho Power or IDACORP, visit www.idahopower.com or www.idacorpinc.com.

Project Overview:
Idaho Power's application for the Department of Energy's Stimulus Funding Opportunity Smart Grid Investment Grant (SGIG) program focused on the need to strengthen and modernize the nation's electricity delivery system. The proposal directly supported the core purposes of the stimulus funds: to accelerate the deployment of Smart Grid technologies and to stimulate the state, regional and national economy by quickly providing new and accelerated opportunities for businesses and significant new jobs for workers. The proposal also supported the program's environmental goals by empowering consumers, fostering behavior change, and supporting the integration of renewable resources thereby reducing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. The application requested half of the $94 million project cost.

At the heart of our Smart Grid initiative is the ability to empower customers to proactively manage their energy usage and costs by providing them with time variant pricing options enabled through smart meters and other related technologies. Among other benefits, we believe that community participation through this Smart Grid initiative will help Idaho Power lead the way and achieve measureable results towards:

• Reduced electricity consumption
• Lower peak demand
• Continuation of some of the lowest electric rates in the nation
• Reduced costs of power interruptions
• More reliability and resiliency in operating the grid
• Reliable and efficient integration of renewable generation resources
  

Project scope:

• Implement smart meters
• Increase customer access to energy usage information
  • provide customers' electrical energy use through smart meters and software systems
  • allow customers to view energy use, enabling them to make informed choices regarding their energy use
  • implement a Customer Information System (CIS) and enterprise meter data warehouse to provide territory wide time-variant-pricing options and customer relations management tools allowing our customer service representatives to help customers interpret their energy use and recommend programs and options to reduce use and cost
• Improve electrical infrastructure
  • implement an outage management system that communicates with a customer's electric meter to determine the extent of outages and validate restoration of service
  • add transmission system tools enhancing reliability and allowing the reliable and efficient integration of renewable generation
  • install devices to minimize outage size and duration
    

Receipt of the grant will contribute to Idaho Power's continued strategy of responsible planning, protecting current resources and ensuring responsible energy usage.