Power plant using renewable solar energy with sun
Power plant using renewable solar energy with sun
QUINCY — A Portland-based renewable energy developer is seeking Grant County approval to build a utility-scale solar and battery project on more than 750 acres of rural land northeast of Quincy.
Record Energy Center LLC, doing business as Record Solar–Quincy, has applied for a conditional use permit and State Environmental Policy Act review to construct, operate and eventually decommission an 80‑megawatt solar energy facility paired with an 80‑megawatt battery energy storage system on 15 parcels in the Beezley Hills area north of Winchester, according to county planning documents. The project site is generally near Road 13 Northwest and Adams Road North, with access from public gravel roads 13 Northwest and 14 Northwest.
The proposal calls for up to 180,000 photovoltaic panels mounted on single‑axis tracking racks that would rotate from east to west over the course of the day, feeding power into a new project substation and then into Grant County Public Utility District’s Columbia–Rocky Ford 115‑kilovolt and 230‑kilovolt transmission system that crosses the site, according to application and SEPA records. The solar arrays, inverters, on-site substation and BESS would be contained inside a fenced project area of roughly 570 acres within a total project footprint of about 754 acres zoned Rural Resource, with a small portion mapped as Rural Remote, county and applicant filings show.
Grant County Development Services issued a revised threshold SEPA notice Dec. 17, 2025, for Record Solar–Quincy, listing the project under county files P25‑0047 and P25‑0048 and setting a public comment deadline of Jan. 19, 2026. A public hearing before the Grant County Hearings Examiner is tentatively set for April 8 at noon in the commissioners’ hearing room in Ephrata, with a Zoom option available for remote testimony, according to the county’s revised notice of application and hearing.
The applicant, Hawthorne Renewable Energy, lists its main contact as Conor Grogan, chief operating officer, with a business address in Portland and a permitting director based in Phoenix. The conditional use permit narrative identifies multiple local landowners as lessors, including Somers Sunrise Ranch, Quincy Orchard Holdings LLC, and individual property owners such as Joyce and Jerome Fox, Francisco and Baltazar Martinez‑Mendoza, Israel Aguilar Mendoza and Rigoberto Navarro Jr., whose parcels together make up the solar site.
Project documents describe the Record Energy Center as a 30‑ to 40‑year facility that would generate up to 80 megawatts of electricity at the point of interconnection and use a four‑hour, grid‑connected lithium‑ion battery system to store power and respond to grid demand. Construction is projected to begin in 2028 and take roughly 12 to 18 months, with a target commercial operation date as early as July 2030 and a peak construction workforce of about 200 people, according to the SEPA checklist.
During construction, the developer plans to build up to 15 miles of private, 20‑foot‑wide gravel access roads within the site, plus perimeter access routes that Grant County Fire District officials requested as both firebreaks and emergency access, according to the applicant’s response to agency comments. A single‑story operations and maintenance building, gravel parking area and on‑site water tank for fire protection are proposed along Road 13 Northwest, with two to four daily vehicle trips expected during routine operations.
Environmental review materials state that most of the project area consists of native and ruderal grasslands, pasture and retired orchards on non‑irrigated soils, with no mapped wetlands and only ephemeral drainages that flow toward the West Canal, part of the Quincy Valley irrigation network. The applicant says between 1% and 2% of the site would be covered by impervious surfaces such as roads and equipment pads, and that stormwater would be managed under a Construction Stormwater General Permit using best management practices and culverted crossings at ephemeral channels.
A biological site characterization and wildlife survey completed in 2024 found shrub‑steppe and degraded shrub‑steppe communities on a portion of the site, as well as habitat for species including Washington ground squirrel, a state candidate species documented at a colony in the northwestern project area. The project layout has been revised to avoid the colony with a 300‑foot buffer, and Hawthorne has agreed to additional focused surveys before ground disturbance and to use “wildlife‑friendly” fencing and unfenced travel corridors to preserve movement for deer and other large mammals, according to correspondence with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation.
Cultural resource investigations led by Historical Research Associates, HDR Engineering and tribal monitors documented multiple precontact and historic archaeological sites across the Beezley Hills project area, including four sites the state Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation has determined eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places and the Washington Heritage Register. The applicant says the current design avoids all precontact sites and precontact portions of multicomponent sites, including sites 45GR04297, 45GR04310, 45GR04331 and 45GR04336, and commits to a project‑specific monitoring and inadvertent discovery plan during construction rather than seeking a state excavation permit for those areas.
In written comments, the Colville Tribes raised concerns about shrub‑steppe loss, mule deer habitat, culturally important plants and gaps in historic background research, while also commending the combined HDR and tribal fieldwork as substantially improving documentation of resources in the project area. Hawthorne’s response pledges to develop off‑site and on‑site habitat mitigation consistent with WDFW’s draft guidelines for utility‑scale solar, coordinate on native seed mixes that could restore traditional plant communities, and update the cultural report to reflect tribal input and use of tools such as LiDAR.
Grant County’s SEPA notice lists the proposal as consistent with the county comprehensive plan designation of Rural Resource and notes that solar energy facilities are allowed as a conditional use in the Rural Resource zone, subject to specific solar performance and decommissioning standards. The applicant states it is prepared to enter into a development agreement that includes a decommissioning plan to remove equipment and return the land to agricultural use when the project’s operating life ends. Residents, agencies and tribes may submit written comments to Grant County Development Services through Jan. 19 and will have an opportunity to testify at the April
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