Beat
16 entries
My Edmonds News
Snohomish County PUD will run planned nighttime outages in Edmonds October 20 to 28 as crews replace aging wood transmission poles with steel along 188th Street Southwest and 88th Avenue West. The work covers six nights, each from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m., with intermittent road closures along both streets.
GeekWire
An $800 clue in a Y Combinator category on Tuesday's 'Jeopardy!' pointed to Everett-based Helion: the company says it will build the first power plant using fusion, and three-day champion Greg Monson supplied the right question. CEO David Kirtley shared the moment on LinkedIn, writing that clean, safe, reliable power is getting a little more mainstream.
The Daily Herald
Snohomish County PUD proposed a 2027 electric budget of $769 million in operating spending plus $239 million in capital spending for system reliability upgrades, with no rate increase. Officials credited better-than-expected 2025 year-end finances and deferral of lower-priority projects; the last no-increase budget proposal was in 2021, and the most recent change was a 2.5 percent increase that took effect April 1, 2026.
Everett Post
Zap Energy, the Everett-based fusion company, secured U.S. Department of Energy approval for two capacitor development milestones; the devices store and release electricity in sub-second bursts to drive fusion fuel into the extreme conditions needed for power generation. Its 35-kilovolt actively cooled capacitor is rated for 6 billion pulses at 10 hertz, against roughly 100,000 pulses for typical commercial units, and a 2.8-pound prototype held capacitance within 0.25 percent across hundreds of cycles at 8 kilovolts and over 7,000 amps. Design, manufacturing, and testing were done at the company's Everett headquarters.
My Edmonds News
More than 400 people protested at 19 locations across Washington Sunday to demand a statewide moratorium on data centers. In Walla Walla, where Amazon plans a $4.8 billion data center, about 40 people marched to the county community development director's office; Amazon's filings give conflicting cooling-water figures of 14 million and 18 million gallons a year, and two local moratorium petitions have gathered nearly 1,900 signatures. Seattle, Spokane, and Skamania, Benton, and Yakima counties have passed data center moratoriums.
Lynnwood Times
Everett and Snohomish County PUD leaders cut the ribbon September 19 on El Sol al Alcance de tus Manos, a 400-kilowatt community solar array and public-art installation on 1.75 acres next to Walter E. Hall Park on Casino Road in south Everett. The roughly $2.5 million project, over 80 percent covered by grants and tax credits including $861,814 from the state Clean Energy Fund, generates enough electricity for about 30 homes; revenue from its power goes to the PUD's Community Energy Fund, which has provided over $40,000 in bill assistance to about 200 families.
Lynnwood Times
Helion, the Everett-based fusion company, has grown from 80 to 800 employees over four years and opened a downtown Seattle office September 8 for its business team. Its Orion facility under construction in Malaga, Chelan County is designed to deliver at least 50 megawatts of electricity beginning in 2028 under a 2023 power purchase agreement with Microsoft; the company has raised over $1.5 billion and was valued at $15.5 billion after a $465 million round this year.
The Daily Herald
Snohomish County PUD will hold a ribbon-cutting September 19 for its $2.5 million community solar facility at Walter E. Hall Park on Casino Road in south Everett, largely paid for by state grants. The array produces about 400,000 kilowatt hours a year and has operated since December 2024; power-sale revenue, about $40,000 so far, goes to the PUD's Community Energy Fund for bill assistance.
The Daily Herald
About 13 people spoke at the Snohomish County Council's public hearing on its six-month moratorium on new data center development in unincorporated areas. Most supported the moratorium and some called for a permanent ban; Council member Nate Nehring said permanent regulation will take several months and anticipated extending the pause to a full year.
Lynnwood Times
The Snohomish County Council scheduled a public hearing for 10:30 a.m. August 19 in Everett on Emergency Ordinance 26-026, the six-month moratorium it adopted unanimously on June 24. The ordinance pauses applications for data centers of 2 megawatts or greater in all zones of unincorporated Snohomish County and expires December 25 unless renewed.