OPERATIONAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS

In 2022 Inland’s operation and engineering departments focused on these large projects:

• The completion of the Hayford substation voltage regulator replacement. Detected and corrected a manufacturer defect that likely would have resulted in a major outage if left uncorrected.

The start-up of a four-year conversion program of our meter services. This program upgrades meters with new technology improving accuracy and reliability.

Successfully completed our overhead inspection program, which enables us to better forecast future improvements and mitigate any issues related to failures and fire dangers.

• Worked to add a breaker station to the 115kV line serving the Tum Tum substation. Final completion is expected in early 2024 and will have a positive impact on power supplier outages affecting the Tum Tum substation.

• Continuation of Inland Power’s wildfire mitigation plan and our enhanced vegetation management program to reduce the risk of wildfire in our service territory.

New Service Requests

Our expansion over the last several years has been exciting and we look forward to continuing our growth. The number of members Inland serves is steadily increasing. Ten years ago, Inland Power served nearly 39,000 meters. Today, we now service almost 46,000 meters in 13 counties within eastern Washington and northern Idaho. That’s an average of 964 new service requests per year, and we are not slowing down.

NEW SERVICE REQUEST TOTALS:

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Inland Fleet

Inland’s fleet must be safe, reliable and able to endure driving in tough, off-road conditions.

Each year we are very diligent in assessing our needs, getting the best value and getting the right equipment for the job. It is very important as well that we replace equipment at the end of useful life to avoid the breakdowns that impact our employees’ ability to serve our members as scheduled.

Our annual fleet budget ranges between $1.1 to $1.7 million and includes small and large bucket trucks, diggers, excavators, UTVs and various types of service trucks, such as pick-ups, substation trucks, trailers and mechanic trucks.

Reliability

Inland Power is committed to providing safe, reliable service. From time-to-time events beyond our control create outages. As demand for electricity continues to grow, we recognize the need to upgrade our infrastructure to ensure that we continue meeting our members’ needs reliably. We have invested significantly in upgrading our systems, which include transitioning lines in high-outage areas from overhead to underground. We are also modernizing our substations to ensure we can meet our capacity needs as we experience ongoing growth and as we continue to be subjected to extreme weather events, both hot and cold.