Boardman Coal Plant in Oregon, Photo Credit: Scott Butner
These past few weeks have seen a number of victories against coal power impacting Idaho customers.
First, we saw Idaho Power’s first official coal plant closure with the Boardman Coal Plant in Oregon officially shutting down on October 15. Now Oregon has no operating coal plants, and Idaho Power has one less coal plant on its power lines. Thanks to everyone, particularly Sierra Club advocates in Oregon, who put this in motion over a decade ago so that we can now all breathe cleaner, safer air!
Additionally, we saw Idaho Power release the latest version of its updated 2019 Integrated Resource Plan on October 2, showing that it hopes to exit the Valmy Coal Plant in Nevada three years earlier than originally planned (2022 instead of 2025). Idaho Power found that doing so would save customers $3 million, due to the increasing costs of continuing to operate coal plants. We will be working with the utility over the next year to ensure they stick to this plan and continue to encourage an accelerated exit from its other remaining coal plant in Wyoming - the Jim Bridger Coal Plant.
Lastly, we saw a couple of major wins against the Colstrip Coal Plant in Montana, which is owned by Avista and Rocky Mountain Power, utilities that serve north Idaho and eastern Idaho, respectively. On Oct 15, the Idaho Public Utilities Commission (PUC) signaled approval of Avista’s plans to exit Colstrip by 2025 or sooner, and this week a proposal for another Washington utility to sell its share of the Colstrip, which would have been detrimental to accelerating the retirement of the plant, fell through after staunch opposition from advocates across the region.
Coal is losing. We are winning. Let’s keep up this momentum!
