More than a year after Tacoma Power and the Skokomish Tribe agreed to settle their three-decade-long fight over the Cushman Dam properties, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued an order Thursday amending the power company’s license to include the terms of the settlement. (more…)
BELLEVUE – Puget Sound Energy recently completed a new fish hatchery and upstream trap-and-haul facility on Baker River in the North Cascades. (more…)
On the afternoon of May 19, in a single chaotic hour, more than a thousand wind turbines in the Columbia River Gorge went from spinning lazily in the breeze to full throttle as a storm rolled east out of Hood River.
Suddenly, almost two nuclear plants’ worth of extra power was sizzling down the lines –the largest hourly spike in wind power the Northwest has ever experienced. (more…)
Federal energy regulators say they’re satisfied with PacifiCorp’s plan to repair spillway gates at three major dams on the North Fork of the Lewis River. (more…)
Federal energy regulators are raising alarm about the potential for “catastrophic failure” of spillway gates on three major PacifiCorp-owned dams on the North Fork of the Lewis River. The concern arises from a 10-year inspection earlier this year by the investor-owned utility that was submitted to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in late January. PacifiCorp and the federal agency declined to release the report itself, citing security concerns.
However, it did elicit a strong reaction from federal regulators. (more…)
REXBURG – Rocky Mountain Power continues its preliminary work prior to starting the physical rebuilding of the Ashton Dam.
After a lengthy review of the condition of the dam by its own engineers, consultants and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the power company decided in February it would rebuild part of the dam.
Initially the company said the project was anticipated to take two years, but upon further analysis, the company has decided to try to complete the work by the end of 2012. (more…)
Winter’s snow drought has given way to a temporary flood of late-spring runoff, forcing regional managers of the electrical grid to give away power, dial back generation at thermal plants and rapidly fill reservoirs to maintain acceptable conditions for migrating fish.
Robust water flows in the region’s rivers are typically a blessing, creating a bounty for electricity generation, irrigation, fish passage and recreation. Indeed, only a month ago, the Bonneville Power Administration was issuing dire warnings about summer water shortages. (more…)
Normally, the power generators at the Snoqualmie Falls hydroelectric plant run at a painful roar.
This summer, the machinery is silent for the first time in more than a century.
The silence is bittersweet for folks like Power Plant Manager Dave Magnuson, who has worked alongside mementos of history at the Puget Sound Energy-run site for two years.
“I never thought I’d forget that day,” he said when the generators 270 feet below the Falls were shut down. (more…)
BRIDGEPORT Wash. —Workers are preparing to install a new 45-ton turbine at the second-largest producing dam in the United States, part of a multi-year upgrade that will generate power for an additional 30,000 Northwest homes.
The $120 million project at Chief Joseph Dam on the Columbia River is one of several planned around the country as the federal agencies that operate hydropower dams replace aging equipment and employ new technology to produce more power from the same amount of water.
In the Northwest, about one-third of the region’s low—cost electricity comes from hydropower dams, many of which were built decades ago and require upgrades. (more…)
As winds picked up May 12, the Bonneville Power Administration warned wind farms at 6:29 p.m. to prepare to shut down the wind turbines in four minutes. The turbines were generating about 600 megawatts more power than expected. The power system could not absorb any more.
For the first time, though, wind farms used a new mechanism BPA designed with wind operators and utilities to escape such a shutdown. They sold 330 megawatts of the unexpected energy for the following half hour. That simple step delivered more wind power to regional customers, earned them more revenue and quickly eased pressure on the power system. (more…)
