One of the electrical switchyards at Grand Coulee Dam. (Credit: Bureau of Reclamation) Listen (Runtime 0:56) Read There’s a transfer happening at Grand Coulee Dam. After years of planning, the […]Read More
Workers pour concrete into a transmission line trench and place caution tape into place for an underground electrical line. (Credit: Washington State Department of Transportation / Flickr Creative Commons) Listen […]Read More
Avista says it plans to cut power to parts of its coverage area Tuesday as a way to reduce demand for power. Spokane saw rolling outages Monday, and will likely see more on Tuesday. Residents of the Tri-Cities region have been warned they could also see outages this week for up to four hours at a time.Read More
The Texas blackout is another reminder that more frequent, climate-driven extreme weather puts stress on the country's electricity grid. It came just months after outages in California aimed at preventing wildfires. Compounding this, electricity likely will be even more important in coming years amid a push to electrify cars and homes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Read More
LISTEN BY CAMILA DOMONOSKE For Texas, it’s looking like a daunting power bill. The Lone Star State racked up tens of billions of dollars in electricity expenses, as a free-wheeling […]Read More
Heavy snowfall, ice storms and bitter temperatures continue to put an enormous strain on the state's power grid. This as the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which manages roughly 75% of the Texas power grid, announced Wednesday morning that some 600,000 households had power restored overnight.Read More
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday by Stop B2H Coalition and Greater Hells Canyon Council, claims the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service failed to adequately evaluate the environmental impacts of Idaho Power’s proposed transmission line.Read More
An energy company with hundreds of thousands of Oregon and Washington customers is considering the early retirement of some of its coal-burning operations.Read More
Cryptocurrency companies in Central Washington were left to wait in suspense on Tuesday after they asked a federal judge in Spokane to block an imminent, targeted electric rate increase. The energy-intensive data center operators claim they would be crippled by the Grant County Public Utility District rate hike. The utility says the case is without merit.Read More
When the price of one bitcoin soared to almost $20,000 late last year, an influx of entrepreneurs and developers came to the Pacific Northwest in search of cheap hydropower to do bitcoin "mining." But now cities, counties and utilities at the epicenter in Central Washington are hitting the pause button.Read More
Chelan County PUD in north central Washington's Wenatchee Valley wants to root out a new kind of outlaw: the rogue bitcoin miner. They're attracted to the cheap electricity from the region's hydroelectric dams.Read More
