CLE ELUM -- A patch of previously logged timberland just outside Cle Elum could sprout one of the world's largest solar energy projects by late 2011.
Developers announced the proposed photovoltaic manufacturing and solar power generating plant Thursday, saying it will create hundreds of family-wage construction and manufacturing jobs for a total investment of more than $100 million.
Photovoltaics are a method for generating electricity by using solar cells to convert sunlight into power. The same solar technology powers calculators and watches.
The private developer, Teanaway Solar Reserve, is the brainchild of Howard Trott of Kirkland, who for 22 years invested the riches of telecommunications giant and billionaire Craig McCaw of Seattle.
Trott said Thursday that McCaw is not an investor. He declined to identify who is backing the project, but said it's fully funded.
"We have the resources to get this done," he said.
The project is expected to produce 75 megawatts -- enough for 45,000 households.
What makes the Teanaway project huge is the 400,000 photovoltaic panels to be assembled at the site and then set up in a large array on 400 acres of land leased from American Forest Land Co. of Ellensburg.
The panels won't be wall to wall but will be spread across the acreage, broken up by natural vegetation.
At three to five feet above the ground and surrounded by Ponderosa pine, the array will have a low environmental profile, Trott said. "You won't see this thing unless you're flying over it," he said.
With the Northwest's cheap supply of hydropower, Teanaway Solar Reserve's success isn't guaranteed. The project doesn't yet have transmission or power-purchase agreements with Bonneville Power or Puget Sound Energy, which operate in the region.
But with component prices dropping and tax incentives increasing, the economics of solar power have become favorable, said Neil Lurie, spokesman for the American Solar Energy Society in Boulder, Colo.
The project can use state and federal tax incentives, such as an exemption from the state sales tax. Lurie said incentives can comprise from one-third to two-thirds of the cost of going solar.
With a projected output of 75 megawatts, the project would easily exceed one of the largest existing U.S. photovoltaic projects in Nevada at Nellis Air Force Base, which generates 14 megawatts.
Trott admits the project has an ambitious timeline. He hopes to win a land-use permit from Kittitas County in six months, with construction beginning next spring and partial operations up and running in the fall.
Ron Cridlebaugh, head of the Economic Development Group of Kittitas County, called the economic development potential "huge."
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