Home / Power plants / Washington / Cowlitz Falls

Cowlitz Falls

Hydro power plant · Lewis County, Washington

Nameplate capacity
70 MW
Rank in Washington
#64
of 139 plants
In service since
1994
June 1994

Details

Primary fuel
Hydro
Technology
Conventional Hydroelectric
Operator
PUD No 1 of Lewis County
County
Lewis County
Generating units
2
Share of state capacity
0.22%
Rank among hydro plants in Washington
#28 of 73
EIA plant code
7427

Generating units

Individual generating units at Cowlitz Falls
UnitTechnologyNameplateSummerOnlineStatus
U#1Conventional Hydroelectric35 MW35 MW1994Operating
U#2Conventional Hydroelectric35 MW35 MW1994Operating

Nameplate is the maximum rated output; summer capacity is what the unit can reliably deliver on a hot day, which is typically lower.

Similarly sized plants in Washington

Goose Prairie SolarSolar80 MW
Swift 2Hydro72 MW
Long LakeHydro70 MW
LaGrandeHydro64 MW

About this data

From EIA’s inventory of operable generators, May 2026 release. Capacity is nameplate — the maximum rated output of the equipment, not what the plant actually generates over a year, which depends on how often it runs. A 70 MW solar plant and a 70 MW nuclear plant have the same entry here and produce very different amounts of electricity.

“In service since” is the earliest in-service date among the units still listed, so a site rebuilt around newer equipment can read as younger than the site itself. All Washington power plants · What Washington actually generates