RSSLargest Washington solar plant planned for Cle Elum area
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CLE ELUM, Wash. -- Developers of a proposed photovoltaic manufacturing and generating plant four miles outside town say the project will create “hundreds” of jobs for a total investment “north of $100 million.”
Teanaway Solar Reserve is leasing 400 previously logged acres from for the project that, at 75 megawatts, is being billed as the largest photovoltaic array in the world. It would generate enough power for 45,000 households.
Project manager Howard Trott of Kirkland, Wash., said the Teanaway Solar Reserve project, a privately financed development, hopes to obtain a land-use permit from Kittitas County in six months and to complete construction in 2011.
Trott said neither state nor federal permits will be needed or sought.
Puget Sound Energy has a photovoltaic facility at its Wild Horse Wind Farm in Kittitas County that generates one-half of a megawatt, compared to the Teanaway Solar Reserve’s planned 75 megawatts A typical coal-fired power plant generates about 1,200 to 1,400 megawatts.
Trott managed investments for 22 years for telecommunications magnate Craig McCaw of Seattle. He said McCaw is not an investor in this project.
The developers say the project will combine the on-site manufacturing of the panels needed to convert sun to electricity and the generation of power that will be sold to utility companies.
The project will use 400,000 photovoltaic panels.
“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.”
— Leah Beth Ward
Is anyone else getting tired of Yakima missing the boat on these things? What's the problem?
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