Washington State’s Snohomish County recently detailed projects its crews and staff will be working on this summer to make important system reliability improvements as well as perform preventative maintenance.
“These projects, along with all of the day-to-day work our crews carry out, help ensure our electrical system is as reliable as possible heading into the coming storm season,” the PUD said on July 11.
With increasing demand throughout its service territory – due to a variety of factors, including increased air conditioning use, electric vehicle chargers and a growing population – these projects also help to make sure the PUD is keeping up with customer demand.
Here are just a few of the projects the PUD will be working on this summer:
• Camano Substation and Transmission Line: This project, which includes rebuilding a substation and upgrading an existing transmission line from Stanwood to Camano Island, will help with system reliability to its customers on Camano Island.
• Crosswind Substation: Located near its new North County Campus in Arlington, the PUD is building a new substation and transmission line. This infrastructure will help support both existing and future system loads, as well as allow for the construction of a new battery storage project on site.
• Highway 530 pole replacement: A continuation of last summer’s project, the PUD will once again be working to replace dozens of poles along Highway 530 near Oso. Last year, the PUD ran over 100 spans of new wire and replaced approximately 90 poles. This summer, the project continues with crews looking to replace another 25 to 30 poles plus new wire.
• Lynnwood System Reliability Project: The PUD is working on system reliability improvements on multiple substations and locations. Crews are also working on replacing 12 to 15 poles along the Interurban Trail.
In addition, the PUD will continue regular work to replace aging poles, assess and treat thousands of poles, work on substation battery testing and replace dozens of miles of aging underground cable. Each year, the PUD replaces about 500 aging poles and assesses and treats more than 25,000 poles.
The PUD’s Vegetation Management team will also be trimming trees near PUD equipment throughout the county to improve reliability.
This summer it is especially focused on areas east of Snohomish, Sultan, Gold Bar and Index in order to mitigate wildfire risks.
