Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

The Youth Rally is a leadership opportunity for area youth to participate in and learn more about the electric industry. But don't worry, it's not an "electrician boot camp" – it is a lot of fun! The kids have a great time, build confidence, meet kids from all over the region and have an opportunity to earn scholarships for college. For more information, please email ifpinfo@ifpower.org

This service is provided free of charge. Contact us for assistance.

The city has owned and operated the Idaho Falls Fiber Network since 2002, and it has served the business community since 2006. In 2019, Idaho Falls Fiber started expanding its network, so local residents could take advantage of high-speed internet in their homes. By using existing utility infrastructure, Idaho Falls Fiber is building the fiber optic framework to deliver the bandwidth businesses and residents need to keep up in the information age. Visit the Idaho Falls Fiber webpage at www.idahofallsfiber.com or call 208-612-8725.

For assistance in getting information about your purchase, contact Idaho Falls Power.

If you're in town, take a state-issued photo ID and proof of residence to the City Utilities office in City Hall, 308 Constitution Way downtown. As a municipal utility Idaho Falls Power is a division of the City of Idaho Falls. To save our customers costs, we coordinate with other city utilities (water, sewer, sanitation) to provide a “one-stop-shop” for all utility needs such as connections, disconnections, billing, and payments. We can email you the paperwork if you'd prefer – just send your request to utilities@idahofallsidaho.gov or fax it to 208-612-8241.

Go to portal.idahofallsidaho.gov. You can make a one-time payment without registering. Registering allows you to enroll in Auto Pay by credit card or bank draft, Paperless Billing and Budget Billing; check the status of your account; submit requests or questions to City staff; view your current bill; and see your electric consumption history.

To schedule a tour, call 612-8430 or via email at ifpinfo@ifpower.org.

It is critical that you have all underground utilities located. It protects your safety and prevents you from incurring charges should you damage Idaho Falls Power facilities. All locates are completed through Dig Line by calling 811.

This service is provided free of charge. To determine what programs may be applicable to your business, contact Idaho Falls Power.

Power purchases account for nearly 60% of our annual budget. Fortunately, the majority of those purchases are for power from the low cost hydro power system that Bonneville Power Administration manages.

The biggest source of revenue for Idaho Falls Power is through retail electric sales to customers in Idaho Falls.

This may come as a surprise but squirrels are the leading cause of power outages in Idaho Falls. Idaho Falls logs and tracks outage information for annual analysis. When crews are dispatched to troubleshoot the outage, they note their findings which are entered into our tracking system. When a squirrel is to blame – they find evidence (the dead squirrel and a spot where the squirrel was chewing on the wire).

Idaho Falls Power has a purchase agreement with Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems for 3.032 megawatts (MW), or 5.26 percent of the output, of the Horse Butte Wind Farm. Horse Butte is located on 17.600 acres in Bonneville County, about 15 miles east of Idaho Falls, and consists of 32 wind turbines each capable of generating 1.8 MW. The turbines went online in August 2012.

On average, approximately one-third of the electricity used in the City is generated in-house by five hydropower plants along the Snake River that the City owns and operates. The bulk of the rest comes from the Bonneville Power Administration's (BPA), a federal agency that markets power generated at 32 hydro plants along the Columbia and Snake rivers.

BPA also has one nuclear generation station in its fleet and some wind energy.

If only one appliance is not working, it likely is not a problem with power to your home or business. Therefore, you'll need to contact an electrical contractor or appliance serviceman for assistance. If more than one appliance is not working and you do not have power in your home, reset your breaker to see if it restores power. If not, Idaho Falls Power can check the power coming into your house from the transformer to the connection point on your house. Call 612-8430 to summon help.

Simply put, Yes. The City of Idaho Falls has always secured online transactions when using your credit card. When logging into pay your bill, please verify that you are in fact at the HTTPS version of the login page. You'll notice that your session is secured when you have the green colored bar or secure lock (depending on your browser).

When you are making an online payment, you are actually no longer on the City's website, but on Invoice Cloud. Finally, credit card numbers are not stored by us. The transaction occurs by Invoice Cloud online payment. The money is transferred from them to us and marks the amount paid to your account.

Idaho Falls Power collaborates with Eastern Idaho Community Action Partnership (EICAP) to offer Project Help, a program that helps qualified families pay their utility bills. This program, which is managed by EICAP, assists households with income less than 150 percent of the federal poverty level financial assistance towards a household's heating bill in the form of a one-time payment. The program is available Nov. 1 through March 31, depending on available funding.

Contact the City Utility Office at 208-612-8280 for information on level pay. You must have lived at your place of residence for one year to be eligible. Auto-pay can be set-up through the utility billing office, or online in the customer portal. Please note that auto-pay set up with your credit card will be assessed a $3.95 by the credit card processor per transaction of $400 or less.

Contact the City Utility Office.

Contact the City Utility Office to find out what you owe and why you did not get a bill.

Yes, all accounts disconnected for non-payment will be assessed a $25 disconnect fee. This fee pays for the extra costs the utility accrues due to a disconnect. This fee must be paid, along with your entire account balance, before electric service can be reconnected.

The customer must pay the entire account balance before electric service can be reconnected. Generally, once payment is made, most electric services can be reconnected within 5 minutes.

Eastern Idaho Community Action Partnership offers financial energy assistance. They are located at 357 Constitution Way, Idaho Falls, ID. Their phone number is 208-522-5391.

City offices are open Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., with a few exceptions. Call 208-612-8288 for more information.

Customers can set up a payment extension to allow for an additional 15 days to pay the entire balance of a utility bill. Payment extensions must be set up prior to disconnection and only be requested by customers up to three times in a 12-month period. Payment extensions cannot be used back-to-back and must be set up through the Credit Office. The Credit Office is located at 308 Constitution Ave., or they can be reached by phone at 208-612-8285.

•  Photo ID
•  Rental/lease agreement and signature
•  Social security number

Any electric service account with a balance more than 30 days past due (or 45 days past its bill date) without an approved payment or medical extension will have their electric service disconnected. Customers will receive notification on their most current utility bill regarding any past due balances.

We have several options for paying your bill.  Visit our Billing page for more information.

Contact Idaho Falls Power/Energy Services. We will work with you to look at billing trends and identify whether there is anything unusual. We also conduct free energy efficiency audits to help you minimize your electric bills.

All disconnection notifications will be stated in red on the top and bottom of your most current City of Idaho Falls' utility bill. It states, "Our records show your account is past due. If your account is not paid in full or payment extension processed, your service will be disconnected." The bill will also indicate a pending disconnection date.

If the lines are cable or telephone lines, you will need to contact the cable or telephone companies, Idaho Falls Power cannot raise or lower the lines. For power lines you may be concerned about, contact Idaho Falls Power.

Idaho Falls Power maintains the primary lines going from pole to pole; the homeowner is responsible to maintain the secondary lines going from the pole to the house. Call a tree trimming professional and arrange to have your trees trimmed. If you need to have the power to your home shut off to facilitate safe removal of the trees, please contact IFP and we will work with you to accomplish this.

If the arrangements are made to shut off and turn on power during normal business hours, there will be no charge to you. If an employee has to be dispatched after hours, you will be charged for this service. Confirm hours with Idaho Falls Power when you call to schedule your work so you can be aware of the potential for charges. Contact Idaho Falls Power.

Absolutely do not attempt to get the kite off of the lines as this is extremely hazardous. Please contact our office for assistance.

Do not attempt to recover any objects from within the fenced off area of the substation. To do so would put you in serious danger. Please contact our office for assistance.

When a tree limb comes into contact with a power line, it causes an outage and can damage equipment. It is also a safety hazard as the tree can "carry the power" to the ground. Idaho Falls Power has committed to an aggressive tree trimming program to minimize the safety concerns and increase reliability. The number of outages on our system has significantly decreased since starting the tree trimming program.

Idaho Falls Power apologizes for the inconveniences we can occasionally suffer during an unplanned outage. Often times the outage is caused by circumstances out of our control. Because electric bills are generated based on how much electricity you use, your bill will reflect those times when the power was not being used. Idaho Falls Power does not issue a broad "credit" in these cases.

Contact Idaho Falls Power for assistance.

You will need to have your work inspected by the City Electrical Inspectors at the Building Department. When the changes have been inspected and "passed", a connect order will be generated from the building department to Idaho Falls Power to energize the power. We require someone be present when the power is turned back on, we will contact you to make that arrangement. Contact the Building Division for an inspection.

Contact Idaho Falls Power, 24 hours in advance to schedule the power cut. If the arrangements are made to shut off and turn on power during normal business hours, there will be no charge to you. If an employee has to be dispatched after hours, you will be charged for this service. Confirm hours with Idaho Falls Power when you call to schedule your work so you can be aware of the potential for charges.

You will need to provide a photo ID, social security number, rental/lease agreement, and a signature to the Utility Office at 308 Constitution Way.

There are a number of factors that go into determining when power can be connected to a new building such as whether the building permit inspections have been completed and found to be to code, whether the service line conduit has been installed in accordance with IFP's service policy and whether an inspection of the service line conduit has been completed.  Contact Idaho Falls Power for more information.

No, IFP is paying for all asset costs at no charge to the customers.

IFP being a nonprofit cannot absorb all the costs, so yes there is a location surcharge.

Default is that every location is setup with monthly installments from 30 to 60 months, depending upon the amount. However, a customer may choose to pay the surcharge off in one lump sum. IFP's goal is to keep everyone's monthly charges as low as the previous provider's monthly bill or less.

12-months of annual revenue from Rocky Mountain Power is multiplied by 167% at each specific location. It is based on each location's annual consumption. No two surcharges will be the same. 

The vast majority of buyout customers will see an immediate reduction in their power costs. The amount of reduction goes up generally with higher consumption customers. These savings include the location surcharge. Once the location surcharge has been paid, those customers will then enjoy an even larger savings in their overall power costs. 

Over the years the city has annexed properties into the city for various reasons that are outside of Power and Fiber's purview. Annexing the property does not automatically take over the electric power services. After years of islanded areas throughout the city not being serviced by IFP, the City Council elected to clean up the islands so that all recently annexed properties will be served by Idaho Falls Power which has lower power rates than Rocky Mountain Power. There is also the added benefit of having access to the fiber optic network.

The previous power provider negotiated the service location's annual revenue times 167%, which was approved by the Idaho Public Utility Commission as a non-asset charge associated with each service location. IFP decided that it would pay 50% of this charge to help lower the buyout burden placed on customers.

To report the traffic signal location so personnel will be dispatched to assess the situation, contact Idaho Falls Power.

To report the location of the traffic signal so personnel will be dispatched to assess the situation, contact Idaho Falls Power.

There are a variety of factors that may be impacting our ability to quickly fix the light. Following are a few examples. If crews are involved in a large project, "maintenance" work like repairing street lights will be scheduled outside of the large project.

If the street light simply has a burnt out bulb, that is easy to fix. If it has a more extensive problem, bad underground wire serving the light – that is a more complicated fix and may require scheduling trenching work. If the outage is reported in the winter, occasionally, frozen ground impacts our ability to replace the underground so we have to schedule it around winter as well.

This same question applies for a street light that is flashing on and off all night or is very dim. Personnel will be scheduled to evaluate the street light. It may take a couple weeks to repair, depending upon the problem. Contact Idaho Falls Power with the location of the issue.

Idaho Falls Power staff maintains the school zone lights and timing in Idaho Falls. Contact Idaho Falls Power for assistance.

Idaho Falls Power staff maintain the traffic signal lighting and timing for most intersections in Idaho Falls. Timing for lights on Highway routes (Yellowstone, Northgate, Broadway) are maintained by the Idaho Transportation Department. Contact Idaho Falls Power for assistance.

We trim trees, branches and other obstructions that interfere with the operations or maintenance of primary electric lines or equipment. Primary electric lines are those that run from pole to pole.

The customer or building owner is responsible to clear the power lines that run from the transformer to the home or building. Idaho Falls Power will disconnect and reconnect these lines at no charge while any trimming work is being done.

Idaho Falls Power now contracts with a professional tree service company to trim trees around primary lines year-round. Doing this has drastically reduced the number of tree-related outages.