The United States’ largest proposed solar project, Sunstone Solar, received its final discretionary approval from the Oregon Energy Facility Siting Council (EFSC). The approval was the final step in the state’s evaluation and public engagement process and authorizes project owner Pine Gate Renewables to proceed with constructing the 1.2 GW solar and 1.2 GW storage project.
“Oregon’s energy facility permitting process is one of the most rigorous in the entire country,” said Ben Catt, Chief Executive Officer of Pine Gate Renewables. “The recent unanimous permit approval is a testament to the way our team worked with stakeholders to provide a win-win for Oregon and the Morrow County community.”
Pine Gate worked extensively with Morrow County and agricultural organizations to create a program that aims to offset the project’s impact on the local agricultural economy. The first-of-its-kind initiative will invest over $1,000 per project acre into a county-managed fund for programs that support the local agricultural economy and improve the long-term viability and resilience of Morrow County’s wheat farms.
“The fight against the climate crisis depends on a variety of successful energy solutions like Pine Gate Renewables’ solar power and energy storage project in Eastern Oregon,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR). “This is just another example of the important federal investments I fought for in the Inflation Reduction Act, and I will continue to advocate for tech-neutral solutions in our tax code that promote innovation and efficiency in Oregon and across the nation.”
Pine Gate is in discussions with customers and local utilities to purchase the electricity and environmental attributes of the energy produced by the project which will interconnect to the Bonneville Power Administration via the Umatilla Electric Cooperative system. The project will begin the engineering and procurement process in early 2025 ahead of phased construction starting in 2026.
“As a lifelong resident of Morrow County, I’m excited for Sunstone Solar to move forward so the local community can benefit from the economic opportunities that the project will bring,” said Ken Grieb, a wheat farmer and landowner in the project. “Pine Gate has demonstrated how large energy facility development can be done thoughtfully and collaboratively.”
Pine Gate owns and operates 17 other solar projects in Oregon. The company acquired the Sunstone Solar project from Gallatin Power Partners in 2022.
News item from Pine Gate Renewables
There’s the ‘thing’, Morrow County Oregon seems to statistically have about 5 people per square mile in the county proper. [The first-of-its-kind initiative will invest over $1,000 per project acre into a county-managed fund for programs that support the local agricultural economy and improve the long-term viability and resilience of Morrow County’s wheat farms.]
Sounds too familiar, fallowing farmland for long term land leases for such things as solar PV farms and perhaps even wind farms is starting to become the de facto go to, when one is in the EPC business of large power plants and in this case energy storage. This type of program started In California where farmers were fallowing crop lands and selling the ‘water rights’ to domestic water providers of large cities.
A LiDAR study of viable solar PV roofs in the State of Oregon has revealed the nominal roof area is about 634 square feet and about 14kWpdc generation and there seems to be about 1.9 million such viable solar PV roofs in Oregon. With a statistical average electricity use per day of right at 30kWh over a 24 hour period, 1.9 (million) viable solar PV homes with an average 14kWpdc array, using an average of 3 sun hours a day would allow 79.8GWh of electricity generation a day. Get a (smart BESS) and perhaps 20kWh of battery storage, then one can grab about 20kWh of energy storage a day and still have on average 22kWh of instantaneous generation to use in real time. 1.9 million systems with 20kWh of energy storage would also flesh out as 38GWh of stored energy each day. Perhaps the ‘focus’ should be on individual homes and small businesses first and large utility projects second, just sayin’.
Solarman2 what you are saying is so try and am so happy that you have the math to prove it! We, at the STOP B2H Coalition, have been saying the same. As our communities look towards resiliency hubs for protection from public power shut offs (PSPS), safe breathing spaces from forest fire smoke, and power for medical devises microgrids powered by residential rooftop solar and batteries are the answer.
To add more local energy we need to look toward the rooftops of the box stores and industrial facilities/warehouses in our communities (https://environmentamerica.org/center/articles/which-10-american-retailers-can-lead-the-way-on-rooftop-solar/). Taking exclusive farm land out of production is not the only way to achieve our energy independence goals.
The problem is the energy utilities would not make the money. We the people and other non utility corporations would by selling surplus energy back to them. That is unfortunately why this will not work. The electric utility monopolies would not make the money so they block these opportunities at the public utility commissions that regulate these monopolies. So sad that we’ve come this.
Would like to meet up with you Solarman2. Think we could share some info and have friends in common.