Mason PUD News

 

Mason County PUD No. 3 today celebrated completion of a nearly six-month, $2.3 million upgrade to the Mountain View substation in Shelton, as PUD 3 commissioners threw the switches to electrify feeders off the rebuilt facility.

 

The upgrade included installation of equipment to separate the circuits for the Mountain View, Mason and Johns Prairie substations. This will improve reliability and flexibility when responding to outages or conducting system maintenance. The project was substantially complete the week of May 10.

 

Mountain Power of Coeur D’Alene, Idaho was the primary contractor on the project. The bid amount for construction was nearly $1.2 million. The total cost of the project, including prior purchases of equipment, was approximately $2.3 million.

 

PUD 3’s Mountain View substation serves nearly 2,700 customers in Shelton and north of the city limits. While the substation was off line for reconstruction, its customers were supplied by backup feeds of electricity from the Dayton, Johns Prairie, Mason, and Pioneer substations.

 

The substation rebuild is a part the PUD’s ongoing process of system upgrades and maintenance in order to supply safe, reliable electricity service to its customers.

 

The PUD’s nearly 33,000 customers are served by 11 substations. Each serves on average about 3,000 customers.

 

Substations play a key role in delivering electricity to homes and businesses. The Bonneville Power Administration’s high voltage transmission lines bring electricity to Mason County PUD No. 3 substations from federally operated dams and other generators mainly located along the Columbia River, most of which are in eastern Washington. At the substation, the voltage is reduced, or stepped down by large transformers from 115,000 volts (115 kV) to 12,470 volts.

 

PUD 3 provides electricity to customers in most of Mason County and small portions of Kitsap and Grays Harbor Counties. The PUD also provides wholesale telecommunications services to its customers through a fiber optic network.