Washington solar project includes wildlife corridors and mix of pollinator-friendly plants

A new solar farm in Yakima County, Washington, is now up and running. Cypress Creek Energy's Ostrea Solar project cost $180 million in private funding and adds 104 megawatts of power to the regional grid run by the Bonneville Power Administration. Microsoft has signed on as the long-term buyer of the power and environmental credits from the project.

This isn't a home rooftop project, but it's worth knowing about because of how it was built. The company worked with state wildlife regulators to protect about 275 acres of shrubsteppe, a dry grassland habitat that Washington has mostly lost to farming and development. The site also includes corridors that let elk and other animals keep moving through the area, and workers planted mixes of grasses and pollinator-friendly flowers on land that had sat unused for over 25 years. Cypress Creek will own and run the site for up to 40 years.

For homeowners, this is a sign of how big solar projects are increasingly being designed to address environmental concerns like habitat loss, not just generate power. It's a different scale than a home solar install, but it points to how utilities and large buyers like Microsoft are securing power for growing electricity demand in the region. The project also created about 300 construction jobs, including apprenticeship positions, paid at prevailing wage.