Electric Supply

Puget Sound Energy is the largest energy utility in the state, providing electric power to more than 1 million customers. It is a complex task that requires strategic planning and research, prudent acquisition of new energy resources and cost-effective management of a diversified power portfolio.

Approximately 46 percent of the electricity PSE customers use comes from our own power plants. We currently have about 3,000 megawatts of power-generating capacity. We purchase the rest of our power supply from a variety of other utilities, independent power producers and energy marketers across the western United States and Canada.

Our diversified mix

The electricity we provide our customers is generated using a number of different resources. Hydroelectric power accounts for one-third of our power portfolio. We also generate electricity with our own thermal power plants. We share ownership of a large coal-fired generating facility in eastern Montana, and we own several natural-gas-fired power plants in the Puget Sound region.

Wind power is a very important and increasingly prominent resource for PSE. We own and operate two large wind farms in Central and Eastern Washington, and we are building a third. According to the American Wind Energy Association, we are the second-largest utility producer of wind power in the United States.

The resource fuel mix for electricity delivered to customers in 2010 is detailed in the graph below.

Because PSE sells the excess green-energy attributes generated at our wind facilities to other entities across the nation, we currently do not include the energy from these facilities as "renewable" energy in our electric-power-supply profile as reported to the state of Washington.

* Biomass, landfill gas, petroleum, and waste.
Source of data: Published by the Washington Department of Commerce with data reported by PSE.