$7.5M solar farm off Highway 395 is a 1st for Franklin County

Construction has started on a commercial solar farm near Connell that will help the Franklin PUD meet high electricity demand in the summer.

OneEnergy, a Washington-based company, is building a 10-megawatt project and will sell the electricity produced to the Franklin Public Utility District. The purchase price remains under negotiation.

Building permits filed by OneEnergy with Franklin County put construction costs for the 140-acre Palouse Junction Solar at about $7.5 million. The solar panels will be on about 80 acres of the site.

The project is being built on land that is partly in Connell east of Highway 395 in an area zoned for industrial use and extending outside the city limits on Franklin County land zoned for agricultural use.

The site is just north of the Connell City Airport and south of Nordheim Road.

OneEnergy expects to finish construction by the end of this year and start generating solar power in early 2027, according to Erin Lynch, project development manager.

Purchasing the Palouse Junction Solar power was a strategic decision to help PUD customers, said Katrina Fulton, Franklin PUD finance and customer service director.

“The project’s generation is a good fit for Franklin PUD’s load profile because solar energy production peaks in the summer,” she said. “This is especially helpful with irrigation load coming on and home cooling.”

The project is near the Blanton Substation, which will connect the supply to the Franklin PUD electrical grid system.

The project also will help the PUD meet the Washington state requirement that electricity sold is greenhouse-gas neutral by 2030. That requirement can be met with a combination of clean energy and renewable energy credits.

While Palouse Junction Solar has a nameplate production of 10 megawatts, Franklin PUD expects the actual production will average about 2.5 megawatts.

Northwest Power and Conservation Council says one average megawatt is enough to power just under 800 homes if used exclusively for that purpose.

Dual ag and solar generation

Land for the project was picked because of its proximity to PUD infrastructure, but OneEnergy agreed to move the project farther from the Blanton Substation so Connell land closer to Highway 395 could be preserved for future development opportunities.

The land for the solar project now is in the Conservation Reserve Program and is not being farmed by owners Neal Smick Trust and Neal Smick LLC.

OneEnergy is leasing the uncultivated land, which has no water rights, and is not prime farmland, according to Franklin County.

The land is planned to have dual energy and ag use, with sheep grazing on the solar project. A small area of the leased land with shrub steppe habitat would not be disturbed, company officials said.

The land is in the hunting area for endangered ferruginous hawks, but there is no nest on the project site, according to OneEnergy.

Energy producers in Washington states may apply to either individual counties or the Washington State Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council for approval to develop projects.

OneEnergy Development chose to seek a conditional use permit through Franklin County. A public hearing was held in April 2025 before the Franklin County Planning Commission and the Franklin County Commission gave its approval a month later.

Among OneEnergy Renewable’s other projects is Goose Prairie Solar, an 80 megawatt solar facility near Moxee, Wash.

It also has applied to EFSEC for a site certificate for Wallula Gap Solar, a 60 megawatt project in southern Benton County. Benton County does not allow industrial solar facilities in its Growth Management Act agricultural zone.

Palouse Junction Solar will be the first utility-scale solar project on land in the Franklin PUD service area.