Published 10:00 pm Thursday, February 12, 2026
By BERIT THORSON | East Oregonian
MISSION — When the sun beats down on Coyote Business Park during an Eastern Oregon summer, from now on, some of that sunlight will be transformed into electricity.
The Department of Economic and Community Development with the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation finished a solar array project at the center for the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations. The project is part of tribal efforts to increase renewable energy use.
Patrick Mills, a  certified energy manager and project management professional with the department, said while the array took about nine months to complete in total, the installation of the solar panels took fewer than 10 days.
“It’s a good idea for a lot of reasons, one of the biggest being that electricity rates are skyrocketing,” Mills said. “This is a really novel way to use available grant funding.”
Project funding came from the Washington Climate Commitment Act. Mills said because the CTUIR has “usual and accustomed lands” in Washington, it’s eligible to receive the climate funds, despite the reservation being in Oregon.
Power Northwest installed the array. Erik Beeman, a project manager with Power Northwest, said the array features 200 panels weighing about 70 pounds each that can produce up to 590 watts of power per panel, or 118 kilowatts from the whole array, in a day. He said a typical home solar setup produces 6 to 8 kilowatts in a day.
“They sized the system, inverters and equipment to be able to accept future solar here, as well,” Beeman said. “That was the idea of the layout and sizing. It makes it quicker and easier to add more solar in the future.”
Bruce Zimmerman, tax administrator for the Department of Economic and Community Development, said they chose the food distribution center to power with solar first because it uses so much electricity to keep food cold. In the event the power goes out, there’s a backup generator ready to kick on to keep food frozen or refrigerated.
“We felt that to hold those operating costs to a minimum is really important from a utility bill standpoint, so that’s why this was the first project that we designated to put solar in place,” he said.
Now that the panels are in, the tribes expects the building’s utilities to be almost entirely offset. In fact, when there is additional electricity produced, it will be donated to Pacific Power to help offset costs for low-income households.

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