Kittitas County will get its place in the sun

CLE ELUM, Wash. -- A patch of previously logged timberland just outside Cle Elum could sprout one of the world's largest solar energy projects by late 2011.

Developers announced the proposed photovoltaic manufacturing and solar power generating plant Thursday, saying it will create hundreds of family-wage construction and manufacturing jobs for a total investment of more than $100 million.

Photovoltaics are a method for generating electricity by using solar cells to convert sunlight into power. The same solar technology powers calculators and watches.

The private developer, Teanaway Solar Reserve, is the brainchild of Howard Trott of Kirkland, Wash., who for 22 years invested the riches of telecommunications giant and billionaire Craig McCaw of Seattle.

Trott said Thursday that McCaw is not an investor. He declined to identify who is backing the project, but said it's fully funded.

"We have the resources to get this done," he said.

The project is expected to produce 75 megawatts -- enough for 45,000 households.

What makes the Teanaway project huge is the 400,000 photovoltaic panels to be assembled at the site and then set up in a large array on 400 acres of land leased from American Forest Land Company of Ellensburg.

The panels won't be wall-to-wall but will be spread across the acreage, broken up by natural vegetation.

At three to five feet above the ground and surrounded by Ponderosa pine, the array will have a low environmental profile, Trott said. "You won't see this thing unless you're flying over it," he said.

With the Northwest's cheap supply of hydropower, Teanaway Solar Reserve's success isn't guaranteed. The project doesn't yet have transmission or power-purchase agreements with Bonneville Power or Puget Sound Energy, which operate in the region.

But with component prices dropping and tax incentives increasing, the economics of solar power have become favorable, said Neil Lurie, spokesman for the American Solar Energy Society in Boulder, Colo.

Photovoltaic capacity increased 63 percent over the past year in the United States, he said.

"You certainly wouldn't see utilities or homeowners add this technology if it didn't make sense," Lurie said.

The project can use state and federal tax incentives, such as an exemption from the state sales tax. Lurie said incentives can comprise from one-third to two-thirds of the cost of going solar.

With a projected output of 75 megawatts, the project would easily exceed one of the largest existing U.S. photovoltaic projects in Nevada at Nellis Air Force Base, which generates 14 megawatts.

It would also best a 60-megawatt project in Olmedilla, Spain. The largest project on the drawing board is a 550-megawatt solar farm in California's San Luis Obispo County.

Trott admits the project has an ambitious timeline. He hopes to win a land-use permit from Kittitas County in six months with construction beginning next spring and partial operations up and running in the fall.

Matt Steuerwalt, formerly an energy policy adviser to Gov. Chris Gregoire and who is consulting for Teanaway, said the land is already zoned for natural resource use.

He also said the project can bypass the Washington Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, which oversees where power plants are built.

"You can do it through the state but that is really for big thermal projects. This isn't that," Steuerwalt said.

Trott admits he has a limited background in solar energy but said he's surrounded by experts.

"Yeah we are pushing scale on this but we have the engineering firms to do it," Trott said. "We're very confident we can get it done."

The project has lined up plenty of bipartisan political support. Both of the state's Democratic senators, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, issued statements praising the development.

Rep. Bill Hinkle, R-Cle Elum, said the project "exemplifies what many of us have dreamed of."

Ron Cridlebaugh, head of the Economic Development Group of Kittitas County, called the economic development potential "huge."

* Leah Beth Ward can be reached at 577-7626 or lward@yakimaherald.com.

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