The approximately $30 million transaction also gives Puget Sound Energy (PSE) part ownership in a 3.7-mile pipeline that brings natural gas to the Sumas plant from the main Canadian gas-transmission pipeline into Washington.
Built in 1993 near the US-Canada border north of Seattle, the power plant is a combined-cycle cogeneration facility, capable of generating electricity using both a natural gas cycle and a steam cycle.
With the Sumas transaction, PSE has acquired more than 830MW of new power-supply capacity over the past three years. These acquisitions include the development of two large PSE wind facilities in eastern Washington, the purchase of a 277MW gas-fired combined-cycle power plant in Goldendale, Washington, and the long-term purchase of 50MW of wind power from a wind facility in north-central Oregon.
Kimberly Harris, executive vice president and chief resource officer of PSE, said: This acquisition not only gives our customers another efficient, clean-burning source of power right here in our service territory, but the plant comes already connected to PSE’s power-transmission grid and has direct pipeline access to the region’s natural gas supply.
