Fast Facts

Chelan PUD was created by Chelan County voters in 1936 and delivered its first electric power to a small group of rural customers 11 years later. Today, the PUD provides clean affordable power to the county and to major power purchasers serving millions of homes and businesses in the Northwest. Here are a few other facts about Chelan PUD:

• We own and operate three hydroelectric projects, which, on average, produce 9 million megawatt hours of power a year, enough to run a city of 900,000 people.
• Rock Island Dam is the oldest hydroelectric facility on the Columbia River. The dam's original powerhouse was put into production in 1933. Our Lake Chelan dam and powerhouse were built originally by Washington Water Power in 1926-28 and acquired by Chelan PUD in 1955.
• We built Rocky Reach Dam in 1956-61.
• We're part of the country’s first Habitat Conservation Plans for anadromous fish. Under these landmark accords, we agree to the very high performance standard of “no net impact” on salmon and steelhead runs passing our dams.
• Chelan County is a solar leader in Washington state thanks to our award-winning Sustainable Natural Alternative Power (SNAP) program. Solar panels are installed at more than 30 stations including all schools and seven nonprofit agencies.
• About 25,000 power poles support 1,950 miles of line to carry electricity to Chelan PUD customers.
• We serve more than 48,000 retail electric customers. Our average retail residential rate is about 3.2 cents a kilowatt hour, the fourth lowest in the nation.