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-Editorial
“Go big or go home,” declared Imperial Irrigation District (IID) Board Chairman Alex Cardenas, setting a bold tone as he celebrated a major milestone at a press conference on October 29. IID has secured an $18.3 million federal grant to overhaul its electrical grid, an initiative matched by an equal $18.3 million investment from the district.
This $36.7 million project will fund the development of an Advanced Distribution Management System, poised to modernize IID’s power infrastructure and significantly improve service reliability for its 165,000 customers across the Imperial Valley and parts of the Coachella Valley.
Deyssi Partida, Director of Constituent Services for Congressman Dr. Raul Ruiz, presented the symbolic check on behalf of the congressman.
“What we have before you today is an incredible relationship with the Department of Energy and that process has been through the engagement of Congressman Dr. Raul Ruiz and his staff. They have been amazing when it comes to us being competitive with these Department of Energy grants,” Cardenas said.
Matt Smelser, IID’s Power Department Manager, described the initiative as a five-year, phased program that “will hit the ground running.”
“The areas we are going to focus on are integration of our meters and use our existing technology platform that we use that we use for our operations center,” Smelser said.
IID General Manager Jamie Asbury thanked the IID Board and Staff for their hard work in making this a reality and said this will improve the services to our customers.
“We want to provide better customer service and this and this will give us more tools in our toolbox to do that,” Asbury said.
“As we continue to feel the impacts of climate change and increasingly severe weather events, IID is committed to finding ways to expedite normalizing the system,” said IID Division 5 Director Karin Eugenio. “With our service territory spanning nearly 6,500 square miles—an area larger than some states—identifying where to begin restoration activities can be time-consuming, which delays service restoration.”
Eugenio emphasized the work behind securing new funding. “Significant staff time went into identifying and applying for this very beneficial grant,” she said. “Chairman Cardenas and I collaborated with the Department of Energy and advocated on Capitol Hill to secure this funding, which will allow IID to implement an Advanced Distribution Management System—a major step toward improved reliability.”
The IID was selected for a significant project under the Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships (GRIP) Program, a $10.5 billion federal initiative established by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
Through a $36.8 million investment, split equally between federal and district funds, IID aims to implement an Advanced Distribution Management System (ADMS) that will modernize the region’s power grid and improve service reliability for the Imperial Valley and parts of Riverside and San Diego Counties. This project was chosen as part of the GRIP Program’s second round of funding, administered by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Grid Deployment Office.
The ADMS project represents a crucial step toward enhancing IID’s grid reliability, improving response to power outages, and facilitating the integration of renewable energy resources. Key benefits include automating current manual fault management processes, enabling faster fault identification and repair, and ensuring a stable electricity supply.
This initiative also promises economic advantages, including the creation of 18 contract positions, six full-time jobs, and paid summer internships for local youth over the five-year project period. IID will collaborate with regional stakeholders, such as the Fort Yuma Quechan Tribe, the Cabazon Band of Cahuilla Indians, Imperial Valley College, local governments, and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), to foster workforce development and community engagement.
With 48 disadvantaged communities (DACs) in its service area, IID’s ADMS project aims to uplift communities along the U.S.-Mexico border by providing improved grid stability, job opportunities, and greater access to clean energy technologies, ultimately driving long-term economic and social benefits.
