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How Energy is Delivered /
Energy Department - About IID Energy -
It’s very easy to turn on a light switch and light up a room. But have you ever wondered what it takes to get electricity to your home or business? Three important elements—generation, transmission and distribution are required to deliver energy to your business or home.
Generation Serving a fast-growing desert community means demand for energy will continue to rise. In order to have enough power available for even our hottest hours (or “peak demand”), we must be able to generate electricity at the quantities we need or procure it from a pool of providers who may have power for sale. To ensure a reliable supply of energy in the event of contingencies, we also maintain a sufficient generation resource reserve at all times.
IID Energy demonstrates care for the environment every hour of every day. Our generation plants meet all local, state, and federal requirements for air quality. We also voluntarily adopted California’s Renewable Portfolio Standard which means that by the year 2010, 20%of the energy we deliver to your home or business will come from a renewable source of energy such as hydro, solar, wind, or geothermal.
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Transmission
Once electricity leaves the source (power plant), it becomes part of what’s known as the transmission system. Put another way, the transmission system is used to carry power from sources to substations. It’s not enough to simply have sufficient energy resources. To remain reliable, we must also have sufficient transmission capabilities to bring the power to your neighborhood. IID Energy is in the enviable position of owning, controlling, and maintaining all the transmission lines within its territory. It gives us more control of our destiny and far more flexibility to accommodate growth. Our network includes about 1,300 miles of high-voltage transmission lines. The higher the voltage, the farther we can efficiently carry power. Our transmission lines range from 92,000 volts to 230 kilovolts (230,000 volts). We also own a share of a 500-kilovolt line that carries electricity from power plants in Palo Verde, Arizona, and Farmington, New Mexico, to our station in El Centro. Our GREEN PATH transmission network has become the "green path" of the Southwest, transporting geothermal energy, a renewable resource produced in the Imperial Valley, to other parts of the state. We are actively working with the geothermal industry to develop and transport those resources. Each year, IID Energy’s Transmission Team performs its load forecasts for the coming year, and up to 10 years out. The Transmission Team uses this data and analytical modeling tools to perform simulations that identify when and where it’s necessary to plan for additional transmission capacity. In growing areas like the Coachella Valley and Imperial Valley, where desert dwellers use more power than consumers in other areas, it’s become the norm to need more and more transmission capacity. The Transmission Team looks at all the options to decide the most advantageous time to build new transmission substations or transmission lines. To keep up with growing demands on our system, we are reviewing a number of projects which will enhance our GREEN PATH network with the goal of increasing our ability to import power and bolster our transmission network. We recognize the value of our transmission system and are exploring partnership opportunities for joint transmission planning. By working with other entities and upgrading our 92- and 161-kilovolt lines to 230 kilovolts, costs for many upgrades can be borne by partners who use our lines. The expanded transmission capacity will be a long-term benefit for our customers, both for economical energy delivery for our use and the revenues the sale of available transmission capacity will generate to offset our own operating costs and keep our customers’ rates low.  To learn more about IID’s transmission expansion plans, please visit the GREEN PATH Web site.
IID sells available transmission capacity (ATC) to other entities that need our lines to transport energy through our service area to coastal cities. Our ATC is posted on www.wesTTrans.net, a web-based transmission market, whose development was led by IID Energy, and has become a valuable tool for utilities to locate and secure ATC on the Western Grid. To access IID’s GREEN PATH network click on one of the following links to download IID Energy’s Open Access Transmission Tariff (OATT) or IID Transmission Service Application. Top Distribution The final piece of the puzzle is the distribution system, or the transportation of power from the substation to your home or business. When electricity reaches a substation from the transmission lines, it comes in at a high voltage level that’s best for transporting power over long distances. But it’s too high a voltage to use in your home or office, so it must be converted before it’s delivered to you. Transmission voltage is stepped down at IID Energy substations. Then, the electricity travels over distribution lines at lower voltage levels to our customer’s meters. As with our transmission lines, IID Energy owns the distribution lines within our service area. In addition, we design the system, build and maintain it, and engineer system upgrades. Just as our Energy Resources and Transmission teams are tasked with projecting growth and making sure our system can handle increased demand, our Distribution Team works every day to stay ahead of local development and forecasts future distribution needs. We work with the city, county, and the developers to plan for growth. All homes and businesses are served from one of many substations. If a developer wants to build new development, and the substation in the area is running at full capacity, we may need to upgrade a substation or build a new one to accommodate the project. In either case, planning for growth in a local area always incorporates planning for expansion of our distribution system. Top
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