PSE outage map today

Puget Sound Energy, the largest utility in Washington State

Puget Sound Energy (PSE) is the largest utility in Washington state, serving the Seattle suburbs and a wide swath of western and central Washington. The grid faces a rare combination of severe windstorms, wildfire risk in the foothills and very fast electrification growth tied to data centers and EVs.

• The size of the PSE network and the regions it covers
• Why power outages happen on the PSE grid
• The wildfire mitigation program and Energize Eastside transmission project
• How AMI, tree wire and the new Beaver Creek wind farm support reliability

1.2 million electric customers in the Seattle and Cascade region

PSE serves 10 counties in western and central Washington, including King, Pierce, Snohomish, Kitsap, Whatcom, Skagit, Thurston and Kittitas. The territory mixes dense urban suburbs around Seattle with mountainous and forested rural areas.

• More than 1.1 million electric customers in Washington state.
• Nearly 900,000 natural gas customers.
• About 60% clean electricity by the end of 2025, on the path to 100% carbon-free electric supply by 2045 under the Clean Energy Transformation Act (CETA).
• Roughly 6,700 MW of new renewable and non-emitting resources to be acquired by 2030 under CETA.

PSE is regulated by the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC). The company is privately held by a group of long-term infrastructure investors and headquartered in Bellevue.

Why bomb cyclones and Pacific windstorms knock out PSE lines

Pacific Northwest weather and dense forests are the dominant outage drivers on the PSE grid. Windstorms remain the largest source of multi-day events, while wildfire risk is now a recurring concern in the eastern foothills.

Windstorms

Pacific windstorms can produce hundreds of damage points across the system in a single night, knocking down trees, snapping poles and damaging substations and overhead lines.

Wildfire risk

Eastern parts of the territory and the Cascade foothills are increasingly exposed to wildfire risk. PSE deploys weather stations, AI-equipped cameras and advanced safety settings on power lines to detect ignition risk early and de-energize circuits when needed.

Trees and vegetation

Heavy forest cover and the regular wet conditions make tree contact a recurring outage driver. Enhanced vegetation management is one of the largest line items in the wildfire and reliability program.

Aging infrastructure

Some Eastside transmission corridors have not been upgraded since the 1960s, hence the major Energize Eastside project to rebuild the backbone of the network.

The PSE Energize Eastside and grid resilience investments

PSE is in the middle of one of the largest capital programs in its history, combining clean-energy build-out under CETA with substantial reliability and wildfire investments. The current rate filings cover 2025 to 2029.

Data center construction in Washington and the wider electrification push (heating, EVs) are accelerating capital deployment, alongside compliance with the Climate Commitment Act and CETA.

AMI smart meters, vegetation management and storm response teams

Wildfire mitigation

PSE deploys weather stations, AI cameras and advanced safety settings (faster and more sensitive trips) on overhead lines in high-risk areas. The combination is designed to prevent ignitions and to limit the extent of any de-energization.

Tree wire and circuit modernization

Bare overhead conductors are progressively replaced with covered "tree wire" that resists branch contact, reducing or shortening outages on heavily forested feeders.

Advanced Distribution Management System (ADMS)

PSE is rolling out an ADMS to support the growing use of electric vehicles and distributed energy resources (rooftop solar, batteries) and to reduce the need for large traditional infrastructure projects.

Advanced metering infrastructure (AMI)

Smart meter rollout will replace obsolete equipment with two-way communicating meters that detect outages at the address level and unlock dynamic rates and DER programs.

PSE outage map and emergency preparedness tools

PSE outage map

PSE publishes a public outage map updated in near real-time. Customers can search by address or zip code and follow estimated restoration times, the size of an outage and crew status.

Mobile app and alerts

The myPSE mobile app gives access to the outage map, lets customers report a power outage and pushes proactive SMS, email and app notifications when service is interrupted.

Bill assistance and energy efficiency

PSE runs the Bill Discount Rate program for income-eligible residential customers, plus weatherization grants, energy efficiency rebates and partnerships on LIHEAP.

Washington State's main ISPs

For a wider view of how the U.S. electric grid works and why outages happen, see the U.S. power outage page. For internet outages across the same Washington footprint, the most common providers are Xfinity, CenturyLink and T-Mobile.