Snohomish County PUD projects to maintain high reliability levels, meet growing demand

June 23, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
June 23, 2021

Snohomish County PUD crews this summer will be making electric system improvements and completing preventative maintenance projects in an effort to ensure the Washington State PUD maintains high levels of reliability through the storm season and meets growing demand, it said on June 15.

The PUD has work scheduled on many of its substations, including standard maintenance, equipment replacement and automation upgrades. PUD crews will install a new transformer at its Paine Field Substation, which serves both industrial and residential customers.

Construction on the new Twin City Substation in Stanwood, Washington, is scheduled to be substantially complete this summer. The new substation will replace the North Stanwood Substation and will increase reliability to Stanwood and Camano Island. In July, PUD crews will also rebuild overhead circuits and install underground circuits on a highway near the new substation.

In the Woods Creek area outside Monroe, Washington, the PUD will replace more than 50 distribution poles and install transmission lines to connect the circuits from the PUD’s Woods Creek and Lake Chaplain substations. The work will improve reliability for the City of Everett’s water treatment plant at Lake Chaplain and the PUD’s Jackson Hydroelectric Project powerhouse.

The PUD will also perform work this summer in preparation for new large commercial customers arriving. Crews will install two new underground feeder circuits to eventually energize the new Northpoint development, which spans 10 properties in the Smokey Point area and relocate infrastructure to eventually serve a new Costco. 

And later this summer, PUD crews will relocate approximately 60 transmission and distribution poles in Edmonds, Washington, to help with a road improvement project to increase accessibility for sidewalks.

Along with two projects that will extend fiber optic and communication equipment to improve reliability, the PUD plans to replace hundreds of aging poles, assess and treat thousands of poles and replace dozens of miles of aging underground cable.

And the PUD’s vegetation management team will have a dozen crews trimming trees across the utility’s service territory throughout the summer. The PUD trims trees on upwards of 450 circuit miles each year to aid in reliability, it noted.