Idaho Power to sell its Eastern Oregon service area in $154M deal. What to know
Idaho Power plans to leave the Oregon market to focus on its home state.
The Boise-based company is the largest provider of electricity in Idaho, but it also has supplied energy to customers in a portion of Eastern Oregon for over a century. That’s about to change.
Idaho Power agreed to sell its Oregon service area, which includes parts of Malheur, Baker and Harney counties, to Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative, a smaller, member-owned nonprofit utility headquartered in Baker City, Oregon. The $154 million deal is subject to state and federal approvals, a process that Idaho Power anticipates could take 10 months or longer.
Idaho Power announced the deal and its price tag in a news release.
“Reducing our service area to one state will allow Idaho Power to focus funding, infrastructure investments, and our workforce on Idaho’s growing population and energy demand,” Idaho Power CEO Lisa Grow said in the release.
Oregon represents a fraction of the company’s business.
Idaho Power has over 640,000 customers across Southern Idaho and Eastern Oregon — but the electricity it provides across state lines is projected to make up less than 3% of its total sales by 2030, according to the release.
If the sale is approved, the company would transfer its 20,000 residential, irrigation, commercial and industrial customers in Oregon to the Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative.
Though it would no longer serve Oregon customers with electricity, Idaho Power would still own and operate generation and transmission resources in Oregon, including the Boardman to Hemingway transmission line, which provides power to customers in both Idaho and Oregon, the release said.
Idaho Power said in an FAQ on its website that it’s confident the Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative will aim to keep rates affordable for the customers that would be transferred.
Idaho Power says the sale would allow it to focus on Idaho’s rapidly growing population.
“The integration of this service territory is a natural fit for our existing operations,” Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative CEO Les Penning said in the release. “We look forward to serving our new member-owners while remaining focused on our mission of delivering safe, reliable and competitively priced power.”
Idaho Power is the primary subsidiary of Idacorp, which is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Idacorp had the highest-paid median employee among the nine Idaho companies that traded on major stock exchanges in 2024.
