Washington State a Solar Giant?

solarpanelgenericA solar project in Washington that aims to be “the largest in the world” upon completion was announced this morning. You read that correctly: Washington, home to rainy Seattle. The 75MW, 400-acre development will be located in Kittitas County, where the project’s managing director, Howard Trott, says there is sun 300 days a year.

On a call this morning with reporters, Trott said that although the Teanaway Solar Reserve only just began its permitting process, the plan is to complete that process in six months and the timeline for construction is just one year. It’s an ambitious timeline, to say the least. Trott, who has managed investments for telecom tycoon Craig McKaw for over 20 years, declined to name the group of investors involved in the solar project, but said that McKaw is not among them.

While Teanaway will benefit from Washington’s sales tax exemption on the purchase of equipment used to generate power, Trott said the investors have decided to move forward with the project without waiting to see whether it will gain from the stimulus package. On the technology side, Trott said the project will use either crystalline PV panels or thin film — the decision of which one has not yet been made. But the area’s snow season has limited the project to those two choices, because basically the climate isn’t warm enough for solar thermal solar projects. Once Teanaway is online, it will feed into two nearby transmission lines (one owned by Puget Sound Energy, the other by Bonneville Power Administration) and provide power to over 40,000 homes, according to Trott.

Image courtesy of kevinthoule and creative commons.

loading

Comments have been disabled for this post