Power and Dairy

The last two days of our review of the Community leaders from across the Treasure Valley attending a joint Chamber of Commerce luncheon in Caldwell, sought input from wheat and cattle people. Our final report puts the power company and dairy industry into play. We begin with Idaho Power spokesman Dennis Merrick says his utility company faces new challenges with the growth of new alternative energy sources now connecting to the delivery grid. “We are working to make sure that all of our different energy classes are sharing an equal amount of keeping our grid, keeping our infrastructure in place for everybody to enjoy. What that means is being able to integrate the distributive generation that we are seeing coming online with solar and wind and biomass and those types of different generation that would potentially provide for a different rate class and pay for their fair share of the use of our grid system so that we don’t have a cost shift to each one of us to make up for that loss that we experience and them not pay their fair share.”

 

Treasure Valley dairyman Bernie Tunisen said finding employees continues to plague dairy operations. “Labor is a huge challenge for us right now. There simply are not enough bodies to get the work done and we are competing with other agricultural segments.” The Tunisen family was also honored as the farm family of the year at the luncheon.