Published 2:30 pm Friday, June 19, 2026
By Don Jenkins
A study sponsored by Northwest electric utilities predicts that meeting Washington and Oregon’s climate goals will require building 600 more utility-scale wind and solar installations.
The windmills and solar panels would span 9,200-square miles, roughly the size of Vermont, according to the study by Energy and Environmental Economics.
A high number of wind and solar projects are needed because they only produce power part time, E3 senior partner Arne Olson told Washington’s Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council on June 17.
The projects would be distributed in a six-state region that also includes Idaho, Montana, Utah and Wyoming to ensure windmills were rotating somewhere when demand peaks.
“I can only imagine that local opposition and conflicts will become an even larger issue than they have been in the past,” Olson said.
Oregon and Washington are committed to reducing carbon emissions by 95% below 1990 levels by 2050. Meanwhile, the demand for electricity is expected to roughly double by then.
E3 projects that cutting emissions and supplying electricity will require building 63 gigawatts of wind power, 62 gigawatts of solar power, 31 gigawatts of batteries and still adding 24 gigawatts of natural gas.
Washington and Oregon plan to eliminate natural gas from the grid. But without more natural gas, the region would have to build another 30 gigawatts of wind and another 140 gigawatts of batteries, causing electric rates to shoot up, according to the study.
Projects will have to come online soon to keep pace with demand, Olson said. “We’ll need to be prepared to do a lot more work in this region than we’ve had to in the past,” he said.
“We’re building out a wind fleet that’s twice the size of our existing hydro fleet,” Olson said. “We’re building out a solar fleet that’s twice the size of our hydro fleet.”
Farmers could graze livestock or grow crops between windmills. But the study found that new renewable energy projects would still take up more than 8,300-square miles.
In Washington, most windmills and solar panels are built on flat farmland east of the Cascade Range. Several Eastern Washington counties have sought to place moratoriums on new energy developments.
“I think we’ve met our tolerance level,” said state Rep. Mary Dye, the top-ranking Republican on the House Environment and Energy Committee and a wheat farmer in Garfield County.
Farmers who lease land for projects benefit, but others see windmills and solar panels as intrusions and batteries as flammable hazards, she said.
“It’s creating conflicts within small towns where everyone is related to everyone else,” she said. “We’re literally being told we have to have this because it will solve the world’s problems.”
The Washington Legislature this year created an electric transmission authority with the power to acquire land for new power lines by eminent domain.
The region should look at increasing hydropower production before taking land for windmills, solar panels and batteries, Dye said.
If the transmission authority exercises eminent domain, “it’s going to be pretty hot,” she said. “I don’t think people are going to be happy.”
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