Idaho Falls Power cuts ribbon at new Paine Substation

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) - Idaho Falls is finding new circuits to distribute power.

The city held a ribbon cutting Thursday at the new Paine Substation.

The site will provide electricity to about 4,000 homes.

It is the first substation in east Idaho to transfer both 161 and 46 volts.

This project was originally scheduled for completion back in 2012 after being proposed in 2008. 

After several lengthy delays, officials are finally glad to expand the power capabilities

"It's growth and it also gives us another tie to a 161 source prior to that. Our one source was out of Goshen Substation," substation foreman Cole Scholes said. "So this gives us more opportunities if something happens up there. We've got more abilities. We're kind of a loop fed city so we can back feed out of other substations to keep everybody up and going if we had run into a catastrophe."

In fact, they tell us if this new Paine Substation somehow goes offline, customers will only experience a flicker before another substation will make-up for the outage.