The Department of Energy is entering negotiations for one of the largest in the nation, if not the largest, solar and battery storage energy projects to be built at the Hanford site in Eastern Washington.
It announced Thursday that it had picked Hecate Energy based in Chicago for a gigawatt-scale project on up to 8,000 acres of unused nuclear reservation land near the southeast edge of the Hanford site.
By way of comparison, the Columbia Generating Station nuclear plant on leased Hanford land generates about 1.2 gigawatts of electricity, or 10% of the electricity used in the state of Washington. It is baseload power that can be produced continuously.
The solar project could be operating in five to seven years.
It would be the largest project in DOE's recently announced Cleanup to Clean Energy initiative that repurposes parts of DOE-owned land, including land like that at Hanford previously used in the nation's nuclear weapons program, for clean energy projects.
"With today's announcement, DOE is transforming thousands of acres of land at our Hanford site into a thriving center of carbon-free solar power generation, leading by example in cleaning up our environment and delivering new economic opportunities to local communities," said Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.
Expanding clean energy generation creates good-paying jobs, protects the environment and supports healthier communities across the country, said Brenda Mallory, chairperson of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
However, concerns were raised when the Cleanup to Clean Energy Initiative was proposed that a large solar project at Hanford might not be the best use of limited Hanford land planned for industrial use and to replace Hanford jobs as environmental cleanup at Hanford is completed.
At Hanford up to 14,000 acres have been proposed for a clean energy park.
However, the Tri-City Development Council asked that some land be reserved for its vision of an advanced clean energy park, including a north-south corridor of land that would link Hanford land transferred to the community in 2015 with land that Energy Northwest leases.
That land is not included in the negotiations for the Hecate project.
Tri-Cities WA voice heard
"We appreciate that DOE was responsive to the community's desire to preserve the corridor that is critically important for our 'Northwest Advanced Clean Energy Park' vision to become a reality," said David Reeploeg, vice president for federal programs at TRIDEC. "We have an opportunity to develop this corridor into something really special, including the innovative industries and jobs we're looking to attract in the future."
Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both D-Wash., and Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., also worked to make sure that Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm was aware of the community's interest in preserving land for an advanced clean energy park.
Hecate reached out to TRIDEC to discuss its plans and has pledged to partner with the Tri-Cities community to make sure the solar and battery storage project aligns with community plans for an advanced clean energy park, said Sean O-Brien, executive director of Energy Forward Alliance.
The alliance will be working with Hecate to maximize the opportunities with their solar project, he said.
The proposed Hecate solar and battery storage project would be west of the Patrol Training Academy and stretching east along Route 10. It would extend from just north of Highway 240 north past the Energy Northwest campus, home to the northwest's only commercial nuclear power plant.
Most of the 580-square-mile Hanford site is now part of the Hanford Reach National Monument or is designated for preservation and conservation once environmental cleanup is completed.
The largest area of land planned for industrial use at Hanford is in the southeast corner of the site and the proposed Hecate project is proposed for more than half of the remaining land there designated for industrial use.
Hanford was used from World War II through the Cold War to produce nearly two-thirds of the plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons program. Now the site employs about 11,000 people for environmental cleanup and maintenance of the site at a cost of about $3 billion annually.
Hecate 1 of 11 proposals
Hecate Energy will be required to wrap up it project and return the land it uses to its current condition by the time environmental cleanup at Hanford is completed, which is expected to take at least 50 years.
Eleven companies submitted proposals for clean energy projects on Hanford land, with none of the other proposals under consideration currently for remaining industrial land in southeast Hanford.
Hecate was picked based on its project plan, the plan's technical feasibility, the company's experience and its plan to communicate with Tri-Cities area residents, tribes and other interested parties.
Its proposal, along with the 10 other proposals, have not been made public. They were not likely to have included wind projects since vibrations from traditional wind turbines would disrupt the work to detect gravitational waves at the nearby LIGO gravitational wave observatory.
No decision has been made about how the electricity produced in the Hecate project would be used, but DOE could consider using the power at the Hanford site.
There also is a need for more power to attract new industry to the Tri-Cities.
However, the project would not produce baseload power that provides electricity regardless of the weather. Now most battery projects store power for a matter of hours, such as storing power for several hours into the evening when the sun is not shining, but not for days or weeks at a time.
Hecate did not immediately respond to a Tri-City Herald request for more information about the proposed project.
Benton County has four other smaller solar projects proposed on private land and two Energy Northwest solar projects. Hecate Energy also lists on its website a 100-megawatt solar and battery storage project as under development in Benton County, but it was not immediately clear where that project is planned.
Hecate, founded in 2012, has projects planned to produce more than 40 gigawatts in development. It develops solar and wind power plants and energy storage projects across the United States, many of them in the southeast and in states near or along the Atlantic Ocean.
Replacing Hanford jobs
TRIDEC has supported using as many as 10,000 acres of the 14,000 acres proposed by DOE for a clean energy park for solar power production.
But economic leaders have pointed out that a solar project alone would not provide the baseload, firm power that the Northwest energy grid needs or the long-term family-wage jobs that Tri-Cities economic leaders are working to establish now to eventually replace Hanford jobs.
Most of the jobs created by solar projects are initial construction jobs.
Hanford jobs plus jobs at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, both Department of Energy facilities, account for just over 11% of jobs in Benton and Franklin counties but they pay as much as 23% of all wages in the two counties, according to previous Tri-City Development Council data.
TRIDEC asked that DOE reserve a north-south corridor between Energy Northwest and a 1,641-acre parcel previously transferred to the Tri-Cities community for an advanced clean energy park that could demonstrate new clean energy technologies needed for critical industries such as fertilizer, cement, batteries, sustainable aviation fuels and chemicals.
Energy Northwest is working toward developing an advanced small nuclear reactor on its leased land.
The reactor would not only produce electricity continuously — unlike solar or wind production — but high temperature steam that TRIDEC envisions being used by nearby industries. Industry in the corridor could share heat, power, water, wastewater and water treatment.
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