Puget Sound Energy

Puget Sound Energy

Puget Sound Energy Logo
Type	Energy, Utility
Founded	1873
Headquarters	Bellevue, Washington (Founded: Seattle, Washington)
Key people	Kimberly J. Harris, President and CEO
Products	Electricity and natural gas
Revenue	$3.23 billion. (2009 Energy Sales)
Employees	3,000
Website	www.pse.com

Puget Sound Energy (PSE) is a foreign owned energy utility operating in Washington State providing electrical power and natural gas in the Puget Sound region of the northwest United States. The utility serves electricity to more than 1 million customers in Island, Jefferson, King, Kitsap, Kittitas, Pierce, Skagit, Thurston, and Whatcom counties; and provides natural gas to nearly 750,000 customers in King, Kittitas, Lewis, Pierce, Snohomish and Thurston counties. PSE’s 6,000-square-mile (16,000 km²) electric and natural gas service area covers the largest metropolitan region north of San Francisco and west of Chicago.

PSE’s electric supplies include utility-owned resources as well as those under long-term contract, for a total capacity of 5,044 megawatts (MW).^{[citation needed]}

PSE owns wind, hydroelectric, and thermal-fired (natural gas in Washington and coal in Montana) power-generating facilities, with more than 2,900 MW of capacity.

Strong WA state laws mandating green energy investments has forced PSE to support a limited amount of green power. PSE claims to be recognized by the American Wind Energy Association as the second-largest utility owner of wind energy facilities in the United States. PSE owns the 157 MW Hopkins Ridge Wind Facility, with 87 turbines, which began commercial production in 2005, and the 273 MW Wild Horse Wind and Solar Facility, with 149 turbines which began production in 2006 and was expanded to include 22 turbines in 2009. In 2010, PSE started construction on the first phase of the Lower Snake River Wind Project, with 149 wind turbines that will generate as much as 343 MW of electric power. In addition to wind energy, Wild Horse also includes the region’s largest utility-owned solar array, a 500-kilowatt demonstration project, and the Renewable Energy Center, which is open to visitors from April through November.

PSE also has worked with more than 750 residential and business customers in the development of small-scale, customer-owned renewable energy projects including solar and wind projects. Customers with solar projects are generating at least part of their electric needs through their solar array, with excess energy returned to the utility’s distribution system through its net-metering program. PSE is also working in the area of biomass with the utility’s Green Power Program, supporting “dairy digester” power-generating projects in Whatcom and Skagit counties, as well those involving the use of wood and paper manufacturing by-products and methane extracted from area landfills.

Hydroelectricity accounts for the largest percentage of PSE’s power supply, at 36 percent in 2009. The company operates these hydroelectric facilities:

• The Baker River Hydroelectric Project on the Baker River, a tributary of the Skagit River in Skagit County. There are two dams on the river, generating 170 MW of electricity.
• Two power plants at Snoqualmie Falls Hydroelectric Project, on the Snoqualmie River in King County. The generating capacity of these two power plants, currently 44 MW, will increase to 54 MW following the completion of the Snoqualmie Falls redevelopment project currently underway.
• The Electron Hydroelectric Project on the Puyallup River in Pierce County generates 22 MW of electricity.

Coal accounts for 32 percent of PSE’s electricity fuel mix . Eastern Montana's Colstrip Generating Station is the single largest power-generating facility PSE owns. The utility's shared ownership in Colstrip's four coal-fired power plants provides PSE approximately 700 MW of generating capacity.

Natural gas-fired power generation accounts for 30 percent of the utility’s electricity fuel mix. The company operates these natural gas-fired facilities:

• The Sumas Generating Station in Whatcom County is a cogeneration natural gas –fired plant capable of generating 125 MW of electricity.
• The Encogen Generating Station in Whatcom County is a combined-cycle natural gas-fired plant capable of generating 167 MW of electricity.
• The Goldendale Generating Station in Klickitat County is a combined-cycle natural gas-fired plant capable of generating 277 MW of electricity.
• The Mint Farm Generating Station in Cowlitz County is a combined-cycle natural-gas fired plant capable of generating 310 MW of electricity.
• The Fredonia Generating Station in Skagit County is a simple-cycle natural gas-fired plant capable of generating 314 MW of electricity.
• The Frederickson Generating Station in Pierce County is a simple-cycle natural gas-fired plant capable of generating 147 MW of electricity; the nearby Frederickson 1 Generating Station is a combined-cycle natural gas-fired plant capable of generating 137 MW of electricity.
• The Whitehorn Generating Station in Whatcom County is a simple-cycle natural gas-fired plant capable of generating 147 MW of electricity.

Wind power and other generation sources, such as biomass and landfill gas, account for less than one 1 percent of the utility’s electricity fuel mix. The company owns and operates these wind-power facilities:

• The Hopkins Ridge Wind Facility in southeast Washington’s Columbia County. Hopkins Ridge’s 87 wind turbines have the capacity to generate 157 MW of electricity.
• The Wild Horse Wind Facility in central Washington’s Kittitas County. Wild Horse’s 149 wind turbines have the capacity to generate 273 MW of electricity.

For its natural gas service to customers, PSE purchases natural gas supplies originating in western Canada and the U.S. Rocky Mountains states. Most of this natural gas reaches PSE’s customers through a network of underground interstate pipelines and local natural gas mains. On cold winter days, PSE withdraws natural gas supplies from the Jackson Prairie Natural Gas Storage Facility, which is located near Chehalis, Wash. Jackson Prairie, the Pacific Northwest’s largest underground natural gas storage facility, is operated and co-owned by PSE.

History

Through mergers and acquisitions, dozens of small utility companies gradually evolved into today’s Puget Sound Energy. The oldest of these – the Seattle Gas Light Company – introduced Washington Territory to manufactured-gas lighting on New Year’s Eve, 1873. A dozen years later, another PSE ancestor – the Seattle Electric Light Company – gave the region its first electric service from a central power plant. Yet another of PSE’s predecessor companies built the region’s first large hydroelectric plant, at Snoqualmie Falls, in 1898.

PSE was formed in 1997 when two of its largest ancestral companies – Puget Sound Power & Light Company and Washington Energy Company – merged.

In 2009, Puget Holdings, a group of long-term infrastructure investors, merged with Puget Energy, PSE’s parent company. Puget Energy is a holding company incorporated in the State of Washington. All of its operations are conducted through its utility subsidiary, PSE, which is regulated by Washington state’s Utilities and Transportation Commission.^{[citation needed]} PSE is now owned by a conglomerate of Australian and Canadian financial institutions.