OTEC seeks approval to take over Idaho Power territory in Baker County

Baker County ratepayers could soon see their electric service tied more tightly to a Baker City-based cooperative, but first the Oregon Public Utility Commission must decide whether to approve a $154 million transfer of Idaho Power’s Oregon distribution system to Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative.

OTEC and Idaho Power filed the application on May 20, and described it the next day as a request for OPUC approval of an agreement to move ownership of Idaho Power’s Oregon distribution system to OTEC. The filing did not change service immediately, but it did launch the regulatory review that will determine whether the sale can proceed and under what conditions.

If approved, about 20,000 Idaho Power customers in Oregon, including customers in Baker, Malheur, Harney and Wallowa counties, would move to OTEC. The companies said the deal is expected to close in early 2027. For Baker County, that would mean a local cooperative headquartered in Baker City would take over more of the region’s electric distribution work, including outage response, infrastructure planning and long-term investment decisions that shape reliability in a rural county where weather and distance already complicate service.

The companies also laid out what would stay the same. Idaho Power said it would continue to own and operate generation and transmission assets in Oregon after the transfer, including the Boardman to Hemingway transmission line, which serves Idaho, Oregon and the broader region. Idaho Power would also sell wholesale energy to OTEC under a multi-year power supply agreement.

The rate picture is central to the deal. Idaho Power said Oregon represented less than 3% of its total sales by 2030 and that, without the sale, it would likely need a general rate increase of at least 17% in Oregon to recover rising costs. With the sale, the company said former Idaho Power customers would need to pay about 5.7% more than their current rates under OTEC. Either way, the companies said some increase would be needed to reflect the cost of service.

OTEC said it currently serves about 32,000 meters and nearly 60,000 residents across Baker, Union, Grant and Harney counties, with roughly 3,000 miles of overhead and underground lines and more than $196 million invested in its distribution system. The cooperative said it was founded in 1987 and began operating in 1988, after three Baker City residents collected a penny from 700 citizens to show support and secured a $33 million loan from the National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation.

Idaho Power said it has served eastern Oregon for more than a century and pointed to an Oregon distribution system planning process ordered by the Oregon Public Utility Commission on March 22, 2019, to create a more transparent framework for utility investments. The next big decision now rests with state regulators, who will decide whether the transfer can advance from proposal to approval.