Source: Hal Bernton, Seattle Times. March 6, 2019
Solar-energy farms have boomed in California, but have gotten off to a much slower start in Washington. But recently there has been a surge of interest in building new solar farms as well as in expanding wind power.
One of the Northwest’s most ambitious solar projects has been proposed for 1,700 acres of private and public land in Klickitat County near the Columbia River, where Bonneville Power Administration lines following the waterway could carry the electricity to Western Washington.
Portland-based Avangrid Renewables seeks to build a project that would require more than 500,000 photovoltaic panels, to be spread in long rows of acreage now used for grazing cattle or in a federal conservation reserve, according to a document the company filed with its project application in Klickitat County.
Solar-energy farms have boomed in California, but have gotten off to a much slower start in Washington, where hydropower and — in the early 2000s — wind power have been the major sources of renewable-electricity generation.