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WENATCHEE — The Chelan County PUD is anticipating several large electric loads to hit the grid in the next few years.

That means new substations, among other things.

The areas of consideration for new substations include Malaga, downtown Wenatchee and Mission Ridge, said Andy Wendell, director of customer service, during a recent commission meeting. Those were three that could each have a large load customer needing 100 megawatts in the next three to five years.

Thirteen total areas have substations proposed, including those for cloud storage buildings in Malaga.

“The PUD is working on bid packages for transformers and circuit breakers for the new substation that will serve Microsoft,” in Malaga, said Steven Wickel, PUD interim director of transmission and compliance. "The substation is in the design phase, and construction is not anticipated to begin until 2023."

In downtown Wenatchee, construction investments of more than $300 million were expected in the next five to 10 years, Wendell said.

Some of that was repurposing, he said, and includes projects such as the PUD headquarters at Fifth Street and Wenatchee Avenue and the former Lineage Logistics/J.R. Simplot/Columbia Colstor warehouse on Highway 285.

The PUD is expected to move to its new headquarters in Olds Station next year.

The former warehouse property is in the construction phase for the Riverfront Village apartment complex.

"From an energy standpoint, some of those ag loads that are large, industrial loads are going away, and we'll see that transfer into more commercial and retail and residential loads,” he said. 

Another area is the Mission Ridge expansion.

“This has been in our planning horizon for a number of years now,” Wendell said. “It's starting to gain more and more traction. The applicant’s working through the permitting process with the county and the application process with utilities.

He said between 5 and 10 megawatts likely would be needed for the site.

“We do recognize that that will be over a period of time,” he continued. “There will be a build-out schedule there."

The project is likely to use Chelan County PUD water, telecommunications and electricity, he said.

Mission Ridge owner and president Larry Scrivanich said he and others on his team were "going back and forth with the PUD on whether" the project needed a new substation.

"We will see where this eventually lands," he wrote in an email.

Besides anticipating growth, the PUD must determine exactly where to put substations, which can be difficult because most people don’t want them next door.

“There's a real heavy lift associated with trying to locate a substation and go through the processes to ensure the communities are well-accepting and understanding the need for them,” Wendell said.

Some agencies, like Chelan County, helped by offering land. Others have come forward, too, he said.

“I'm not gonna say it's getting easy, but people are much more aware of the need for siting this, and there's more of a partnership view. We appreciate them,” he said.

Once a plot of land is found, there are other obstacles, like how to get the power from the substation to customers.

“We try to locate them as close to proximity to existing transmission lines as possible,” he said.

An example of where that likely wouldn’t be possible is the Mission Ridge substation. He said if the substation was constructed, it would be toward Forest Ridge and the upper Squilchuck area. A 115,000-volt transmission line would run from the valley floor to the new substation.

“So that's a significant investment, significant permitting and right-of-way acquisition that would occur there," he said. “We don't want to lose sight of the importance of making that transmission connection on these substations.”

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