RFP issued for large solar farm in U.S. northwest

Puget Sound Energy (PSE) today issued a request for proposals (RFP) to develop the Pacific northwest’s largest solar-powered generating facility at the company’s nearly completed Wild Horse Wind Project (Wild Horse) in Eastern Washington.

At 500 kilowatts, the pilot solar project would roughly double the state’s entire solar-powered electricity generation and be four times bigger than any solar facility now in existence in the northwest.

“Just as Puget Sound Energy has been a leader with wind power in Washington, we want to advance the development of solar technology and other clean, renewable energy resources here in the northwest,” said Stephen P. Reynolds, chairman, president and CEO of PSE. “The pilot project at Wild Horse will promote solar development and help PSE gain a better understanding of how solar power can be integrated into our broader power-supply portfolio.”

PSE is on schedule this month to complete the construction of Wild Horse, its second and largest wind farm, which will make the company the single largest producer of renewable energy in the northwest.

The RFP issued today is for the design and construction of a 500-kilowatt solar facility in Kittitas County. The project would sit on about eight acres of PSE-owned land on the 9,000-acre Wild Horse site, located roughly 120 miles east of Seattle between Ellensburg and the Columbia River.

All qualified proposals for the design, engineering, procurement, supply, installation, commissioning, and testing of the fully integrated and operational 500 kW solar renewable energy system at Wild Horse must be submitted by Feb. 1, 2007.

If all goes as planned, the Wild Horse solar project could be generating electricity by late 2007. The project’s power output would feed into the transmission system that carries electricity from PSE’s Wild Horse wind farm to homes and businesses throughout the utility’s service area.

The 127-turbine Wild Horse Wind Project, together with the 83-turbine Hopkins Ridge Wind Project that PSE completed last year northeast of Walla Walla, produces enough electricity to serve about 125,000 households. When the sun is shining, the Wild Horse solar facility will have the capacity to power an additional 300 homes.

For more information about submitting a response to the RFP, contact Stephen Emmert at stephen.emmert@pse.com, or 425-456-2584.

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