COEUR d'ALENE - The Kootenai County commissioners voted unanimously on Thursday to approve a permit allowing Avista to build a new $2 million substation in Coeur d'Alene.

Commissioner Dan Green said any issues with Community Development on the project had been cleared up.

"It made a very easy decision for the county commissioners," Green said.

Commissioner Jai Nelson also said there were no pressing issues in the utility's proposal to replace its Blue Creek substation on South Bonnell Road.

"They say that area's growing and they need this to service the community," she said.

Once the utility has the official conditional use permit in hand, said spokeswoman Laurine Jue, work on the project will begin.

"We're really excited that we are able to move forward with the building of the new $2 million substation," Jue said. "It's really going to improve our reliability for our customers in the area."

The new substation will replace the current 40-year-old facility, according to Jue, which suffers from aging equipment.

The replacement facility will be have the capacity to take on more customers as the region grows, she said.

It will also contain technology allowing Avista to respond more quickly to outages.

"It's going to mean that our customers are going to experience shorter outages," Jue said.

The Blue Creek substation serves 2,100 customers in the Blue Creek, Fernan Lake and Wolf Lodge areas.

It will take about 8 months to build a new substation, Jue said, which will sit within the same 4-acre parcel as the current structure.

The current substation will remain online throughout construction, she added, so customers will not be impacted by the project.

Hopefully the new station will be running in May, Jue said.

"We're planning for the future," she said. "This sets us in a good position for the next 40 to 50 years."