A Seattle-based company is proposing its second solar project in southeastern Washington.
OneEnergy Renewables briefed the Washington Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council (EFSEC) March 20 about its proposed 60-MW solar farm near the Columbia River community of Plymouth in southern Benton County. The Wallula Gap project also could include an optional battery energy storage system not to exceed the facility’s nameplate capacity, EFSEC said.
The project would interconnect through a line tap to a Benton Public Utility District 115-kV line and then be connected to the Bonneville Power Administration grid at McNary substation in Umatilla, Ore.
OneEnergy has another 80-MW solar farm, Goose Prairie, due to go online in early 2025 in adjacent Yakima County near the town of Moxee.
On Wednesday, OneEnergy Associate Director for Development Nathan Stottler told the EFSEC that its Wallula Gap project is eyeing 392 acres of flat, partly rocky pastureland and hoping to complete construction by April 2026.
In Washington, solar and wind power ventures can seek approval from either the appropriate county government or, after receiving recommendations from EFSEC, the governor. Benton County declared a moratorium on new solar and wind power facilities in 2021, leaving OneEnergy with the option of going through EFSEC for approval of Goose Prairie. (See Inslee Approves 80-MW Goose Prairie Solar Farm.)
Benton County already opposes a proposed huge and controversial wind farm in the Horse Heaven Hills south of Kennewick. That developer — Scout Clean Energy of Boulder, Colo. — also is going through EFSEC.
In February, EFSEC decided to set up a two-mile buffer around each known ferruginous hawk nest within the project’s 112-square-mile site. In 2021, the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission unanimously heightened the status of ferruginous hawks from threatened to endangered. (See Washington Renewable Developer Rankled by Siting Board Alterations.)
Scout’s plans call for either 222 wind turbines up to 500 feet tall or 141 657-foot turbines along a 24-mile east-west stretch of the Horse Heaven Hills. EFSEC’s Jan. 31 decision potentially would cut up to 116 of the shorter turbines or 73 of the taller ones from the project. The agency granted Scout’s request, giving it until April 30 to continue with the project.
Gov. Jay Inslee (D) already has approved three solar projects in eastern Yakima County, including the 94-MW Black Rock project 20 miles east of Moxee and the two 80-MW High Top and Ostrea projects just west of the border between Benton and Yakima counties.