Not the parent commenter but yes, Chelan and Douglas counties have fantastically inexpensive kwh due to their hydroelectric plants.
The dams are owned by a public entity and the cheap power and plants are meant to be a boon to the local economy. Last I heard (directly from a city council member last year) there is a moratorium on high load customers due in part to all the mining operations that sprung up. Realistically, for the Public Utility District it's been much more profitable to sell the power to other states than it is to allow more mining operations to eat the cheap power.
There were high hopes for the data centers that sprouted up in neighboring Grant county, but they didn't bring anywhere near the number of local jobs that were expected (leaving a bunch of empty houses in Quincy). That in combination with the closure of the Alcoa aluminum plant (which purchased the _entirety_ of one of the smaller dam's output) and you shouldn't expect the moratorium to be lifted any time soon.
Thanks for detailed response. So it sounds like the power arbitrage game is done in Washington(at least for now.) Although I imagine this is good news for those miners who are grandfathered in.
The dams are owned by a public entity and the cheap power and plants are meant to be a boon to the local economy. Last I heard (directly from a city council member last year) there is a moratorium on high load customers due in part to all the mining operations that sprung up. Realistically, for the Public Utility District it's been much more profitable to sell the power to other states than it is to allow more mining operations to eat the cheap power.
There were high hopes for the data centers that sprouted up in neighboring Grant county, but they didn't bring anywhere near the number of local jobs that were expected (leaving a bunch of empty houses in Quincy). That in combination with the closure of the Alcoa aluminum plant (which purchased the _entirety_ of one of the smaller dam's output) and you shouldn't expect the moratorium to be lifted any time soon.