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Departing Washington governor Inslee approves solar-storage project; new bill proposed giving local authorities more say on approvals

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In one of his final acts before leaving office, Governor of Washington State Jay Inslee gave the green light for Innergex to commence construction on its Wautoma Solar and Storage project in Benton County.

A letter outlining Inslee’s reasoning behind the decision, accompanied by a Site Certification Agreement (SCA), was posted to Washington’s Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council (EFSEC) website on January 9 2024.

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Inslee, who served as Washington State’s governor for 12 years, addressed both chambers of the Washington Legislature for the final time on 14 January 2025. His replacement, Bob Ferguson, was sworn in the following day.

Delayed approval process with EFSEC

Obtaining approval to commence construction of a renewable energy development with Washington’s EFSEC is one of three ways available to developers in the state, with the other two being through Washington’s Department of Ecology clean energy permitting process and a local government-led permitting process.

As recently reported by ESN Premium, unlike Innergex, another developer, Hawthorn Renewables, chose to go down the government-led permitting route for its 300MW hybrid Appledale Energy Center located in Grant County.

EFSEC describes itself as providing a “one-stop” siting process for new major energy facilities, made up of seven comprehensive steps. Innergex submitted its original application with EFSEC back in 2022, which has been subjected to environmental assessments and public hearings with various interested stakeholders.  

The siting process culminates with EFSEC making a recommendation to the Governor on whether to approve the project or not, with the Governor having the final say on whether to give the green light.

According to the Washington State Legislature, EFSEC has up to 12 months before it is required to make a recommendation to the State Governor. However, due to delays in EFSEC producing environmental assessment documents, Innergex successfully sought an extension to this timeline on three separate occasions.

Washington’s EFSEC process is similar to that of California’s opt-in process administered by the state’s Energy Commission, with the state regulatory body having the final say on project approval. It was reported last year by Energy-Storage.news that French multinational energy company Engie had turned to the California Energy Commission (CEC) after officials at the City of San Juan Capistrano had rejected a rezoning request for its 250MW/1,000MWh Compass Energy Storage project.

Permitted for 470MW solar PV, 100MW BESS

According to a dedicated website for the Wautoma Solar and Storage project, Innergex expects to pair a 400MWac solar farm with a 100MW/400MWh BESS encompassing approximately 3,000 acres of land in Wautoma Valley, Benton County.

However, this is considerably less than allowed by the SCA, which allows Innergex to construct and operate an up to 470MW solar farm alongside a 470MW BESS not exceeding 5,852 acres of land.

Innergex submitted an interconnection queue request for its Wautoma project with Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) in July 2021 covering 470MW of solar generation and 235MW of BESS capacity (queue number G0684).

So far, feasibility and system impact studies have been completed, analysing the impact of a 470MW maximum instantaneous injection through BPA’s Wautoma 500kV substation.

Opposition from Benton County officials

Innergex’ Wautoma project was approved by EFSEC and Governor Inslee despite opposition from officials at Benton County, the Board of Commissioners of which enacted a moratorium in 2021 on the development of new wind and solar facilities destined for agricultural land. 

Following an adjudicative hearing held during the final quarter of last year, Administrative Law Judge Dan Gerard ruled that a decision from EFSEC would preempt any local planning laws, as long as potential environmental impacts caused by the project identified during the approval process were mitigated. Officials at Benton County filed with EFSEC to reconsider the adjudicative order, however, this was denied by the regulatory body on 27 December 2024.

Within his decision letter, Inslee pointed out that Benton County’s moratorium not only covered 59% of the county’s available land, but also did not consider “site-specific factors.” Inslee pointed to evidence used during EFSEC’s siting process that land proposed for the project had “marginal value for agricultural purposes.”

New legislation could give locals more of a say

As outlined by House Bill 1188, discussed at a recent House and Environment Committee meeting held 20 January 2025, Washington State Representative Mary Dye is proposing an additional step be introduced to EFSEC’s siting process.

According to the bill, once EFSEC makes a recommendation to the Governor on whether to approve a project or not, officials at affected local counties and tribes would be given 90 days to approve, deny or ask for changes to be made to the project before the Governor would be permitted to issue a final decision. 

It’s worth pointing out that although final decision on project approval doesn’t fall to local governing bodies in Washington, public consultation forms a large part of EFSEC’s siting process. Within Governor Inslee’s recent letter, it was noted that Innergex had made several changes to its original design following feedback gathered during EFSEC’s approval process.

In a recent online post, Dye made her views on former Governor Inslee abundantly clear, describing his energy policies as “reckless” and his actions as an abuse of government force. 

In recognising the threat of climate change and need for immediate action, Inslee signed the Clean Energy Transformation Act (CETA) into law during 2019, mandating all utilities within the State of Washington provide greenhouse gas emission-free electricity by 2045. 

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