If you’ve ever been to Washington, especially having come from Texas, one thing becomes clear very quickly: there is a lot of water in this state! I’m not just talking about the rivers and lakes you’re used to, and not only does this state have a beautiful rocky coastline, but there is also tons of rainfall all year long (73 inches of rain per year on average, according to: https://www.bestplaces.net/climate/city/washington/index). The beauty of this type of weather pattern of course is that everything within that wet environment is poised to grow tall and wild, and the pines trees and giant blackberry bushes will certainly convince any naysayers!
In fact, when I lived in Seattle, I remember planting dahlias one spring and feeling shocked to find them, along with roses, peonies, poppies, and other native flowers that presumably had been planted before we lived there growing in abundance that fall! I did get tired of the rain from time to time, but I did not ever tire of watching out garden grow and change each season.
Given the hydro-electric dams in Oregon and Idaho, it’s no wonder that Washington, an even wetter state, should prove ahead of the bell-curve on this metric as well. In fact, according to eia.gov (https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=WA):
- “The Grand Coulee Dam on Washington’s Columbia River is the largest power plant by generation capacity in the United States, and the seventh-largest hydro-power plant in the world. It can provide 4.2 million households with electricity for one year.”
- “Washington generated the most electricity from hydropower of any state and accounted for 24% of the nation’s annual utility-scale hydroelectricity generation in 2019.”
Although these figures are certainly impressive, I think the chart below paints an even better picture of just how much of Washington’s energy grid is devoted to hydro-power:
Washington Energy Consumption Estimates (EIA.gov)
If you’ve been following along with the prior blogs from this week, you already know how this ranks among the other Pacific Northwest states (see Idaho and Oregon’s energy profile posts, here https://suntexllc.com/idaho-oregon-washington-oh-my/). Looking for more details on the state? Feel free to check out the links below:
- https://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/washington/
- https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2016/09/f33/WA_Energy%20Sector%20Risk%20Profile.pdf
- https://www.pse.com/en/pages/energy-supply/electric-supply
For more information on hydroelectricity, be sure to check out tomorrow’s post!
