February Snow Storm

Last night’s snow and ice storm caused outages around our service area, and our crews have been working all day to assess the damage and restore power as quickly and safely as possible. We’ve made great progress, restoring power to over 91% of affected customers. The majority of customers still without power are in Thurston County and Kitsap County, where the most significant storm damage occurred.

The National Weather Service forecasts a wind advisory for the east Puget Sound lowlands, starting on Friday, Feb. 16 at 7 a.m. until Saturday, Feb. 17 at 10 a.m. Depending on the wind conditions, our service area may experience more power outages tomorrow, and impact current estimated times of restoration.

Our crews—along with additional crews from neighboring utilities—are out in force. Many of the remaining outages impact small pockets of customers. Crews are going neighborhood by neighborhood to restore distribution electric service, which gets restored in much smaller numbers, such as to 5, 10 or 20 customers at a time.


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alert 

Safety first. Never touch or go within 35 feet of downed power lines because they might be energized. Call PSE at 1-888-225-5773 or 911 to report problems.

Report and track power outages online

Conservation voltage reductionProviding more efficient power to your home or business

Conservation Voltage Reduction (CVR) is a Grid Modernization technology that allows us to fine-tune the voltage on our lines. This helps PSE increase overall efficiency, reduce our carbon footprint, and better respond to periods of high demand. Best of all, CVR devices optimize voltage behind-the-scenes, without impacting customer experience or requiring them to change their behavior.

How it works

Per the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), the voltage we deliver to customers must fall between 114-126 volts. CVR optimizes the voltage, via regulation devices, to the lower half (114-120 volts) instead of the upper half (120-126 volts). Operating in the lower range produces energy savings without harming consumer appliances and electronics. Similarly, by using power regulation devices, voltage optimization improves the power factor of the distribution grid, minimizing losses and waste.

How we're deploying it

CVR is best utilized in PSE service areas where Advanced Meter Infrastructure (AMI) has already been deployed. That's because it uses AMI's network to monitor voltage on our lines. We're also using CVR primarily on residential voltage loads, versus commercial or industrial. Since 2013, PSE has completed work on 85 circuits, with plans to complete 24 more by the end of 2023.