Lower Snake River Wind Facility

October Windstorm

We understand the stress and disruption that power outages can cause and we appreciate your patience as we work to restore power as quickly and safely as possible.

Crews have made excellent progress, and we expect the majority of customers to have power restored overnight. There will be some customers, mostly in Pierce and Thurston Counties, where it will take longer to restore power. Areas of focus in Thurston County include Boston Harbor, Pattison and Black Lake, downtown and southeast Lacey. In Pierce County, crews are patrolling lines serving Carbonado and Wilkeson, removing downed trees and restoring power. Crews are also working in the Rhodes Lake area, where damage is still considerable.

The outages that are likely to remain into tomorrow will affect smaller, more localized, groups of customers. These take time to repair as crews go from site to site to make repairs and restore power. Crews will continue to work around the clock until power is restored to all customers.

We are also watching the weather forecast and the potential for strong winds tonight in East King and Pierce counties. High winds could increase the number of outages or might delay current restoration efforts if conditions are not safe for our crews to continue to work for a period of time.

Lower Snake River Wind Facility

PSE’s newest and largest wind-power operation is the Lower Snake River Wind Facility. Spanning 21,000 acres in Southeast Washington near Pomeroy, Garfield County, this energy project builds on the success of our Hopkins Ridge Wind Facility in adjacent Columbia County, and our Wild Horse Wind and Solar Facility in Kittitas County. Completed in early 2012, Lower Snake River contains 149 wind turbines that produce up to 342.7 megawatts of renewable energy. On average, the facility generates enough annual electricity to power 70,000 homes, while also contributing jobs and commerce to the local economy.

The three large wind farms we own and operate, including Wild Horse, Lower Snake River and Hopkins Ridge, generate enough annual energy, on average, to serve 165,000 homes. In some cases, we sell any excess green-energy attributes generated by our wind facilities to other entities across the nation. The revenue from these sales helps to reduce our customers’ power costs and allows other utilities to take advantage of the benefits of renewable energy.

Check out the tours and recreation opportunities we offer at the facility.