How Everett Washington PUD customers get help paying electric bills
Anyone struggling to get help paying an electric bill in Everett, Washington can apply to the Community Energy Fund, a bill assistance program run by Snohomish County Public Utility District, the public agency that supplies electricity to the area and is known locally as the PUD. The fund pays customers whose household income falls below 200% of the federal poverty guidelines, and applicants provide their most recent PUD bill along with income documentation from the previous 30 days. St. Vincent de Paul administers the applications. The fund has existed since 1982, first under the name Project PRIDE, and has paid out more than 3,000,000 dollars in bill assistance since then, according to the PUD.
That fund now has a new revenue source. Snohomish County PUD finished a 400 kilowatt solar array called El Sol al Alcance de tus Manos, the sun at your fingertips, on 1.75 acres of city property next to Walter E. Hall Park in south Everett. Every dollar the array earns goes to the Community Energy Fund, not to any single customer bill.
The celebration is happening more than a year later than the PUD once planned
The array generates enough electricity to power approximately 30 homes a year. Snohomish County PUD broke ground on the project March 22, 2024, when it said it expected construction to finish that year and planned to gather the community to celebrate in the summer of 2025. The celebration the PUD is actually holding is dated September 19, 2026, more than a year after that original target, a gap none of the PUD own pages explain.
Where the money to build the array came from
Washington State awarded the project 861,814 dollars through the Clean Energy Fund 3 Low Income Community Solar Deployment Program, according to the PUD own current project page. My Everett News reported at the 2024 groundbreaking that the full project was expected to cost approximately 2,200,000 dollars, so the state grant covered well under half of that estimate. My Everett News also reported that state and federal grants and tax credits together paid for over 80% of the finished project.
The total project cost figure comes from source 4, an approximately 2,200,000 dollar estimate given at the 2024 groundbreaking. The state grant figure comes from source 2, the PUD current project page, and is the figure this article publishes under the section 3b resolution in the research file.
Show the numbers
| State grant | 861,814 |
| Total project cost | 2,200,000 |
A small yearly credit against a large one time grant
At the 2024 groundbreaking, the PUD estimated the array would add about 22,000 dollars a year in energy credits to the program, then still called Project PRIDE. The program was renamed the Community Energy Fund in October 2024. At that estimated rate, it would take decades of credits from this single array to add up to the size of the state grant that helped build it.
The estimated annual credit figure, about 22,000 dollars a year, comes from source 4, a 2024 estimate made at the groundbreaking for the program then still called Project PRIDE. The state grant figure comes from source 2. No source states the array has actually reached that estimated rate.
Show the numbers
| State grant | 861,814 |
| Estimated annual credit | 22,000 |
This project benefits our grid, our most vulnerable community members, and the environment, while also creating a beautiful community art display that can be enjoyed by all.
John Haarlow, chief executive officer and general manager of Snohomish County Public Utility District. Source 3.
Everett Mayor Cassie Franklin also praised the partnership, saying climate action matters to the city and that partnering with the PUD on the project serves both the environment and the community, according to My Everett News. In 2024, the assistance program overall, not limited to this array, was helping approximately 500 customers a year with one time grants, according to My Everett News, before this array added any revenue of its own.