Solar power developer Hecate Energy has started to build what will be the US’ biggest solar farm on 10,300 acres at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State, The New York Times reports.
The Hanford site was a nuclear weapons production and waste storage complex in Benton County between 1943 and 1989. A multi-decade decontamination project has been underway since.
Hecate will have access to land deemed safe enough to install 3.45 million photovoltaic panels capable of generating 2GW, approximately enough to supply all the homes in Seattle, San Francisco, and Denver.
The $4bn project includes a further 2GW worth of battery storage.
If it goes ahead, it will dwarf the US’ current biggest solar farm, the 802MW Copper Mountain Solar Facility in Nevada.
Project proponents will be watching to see if President Trump intervenes to stop the project as he stopped offshore wind development on his first day in office.
Two Energy Department officials, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation, said the Trump administration had yet to intervene but that the future of the initiative was “uncertain”.
Hecate’s director of development Alex Pugh told the Times: “The fundamentals of the project are strong regardless of policy direction. The region needs the project. There is a huge demand for electricity here.”
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