Laurelhurst Substation, Near Tennis Courts, Decommissioned

Seattle City Light has completed work at the Laurelhurst Substation, located south of the tennis courts in the Park.

The project was to salvage the old Laurelhurst Substation equipment which has been decommissioned.

Seattle City Light told the Laurelhurst Blog Staff that the equipment is no longer needed, but the substation property will remain with one high voltage switch still in service.

The benefits of decommissioning the equipment has given the customers better system reliability by moving from the phasing out 4,000 volt system to the current 26,000 volt distribution system, Seattle City Light said. 

Another benefit is removing the hazard of having thousands of gallons of dielectric oil removed from the existing transformers on-site. All of the aging equipment was also removed.

Seattle City Light completed the upgrade of power lines from 4,000 to 26,000 Volts to the south portion of Laurelhurst in January of 2011. The boundaries for the upgrade were NE 38th Street on the north, NE 33rd Street on the south, East Laurelhurst Drive NE on the east and 43rd Avenue NE on the west. Old cable was removed and replaced with newer, more reliable cables.