Solar

Manhattan Project nuclear site reimagined as a 1 GW solar farm

A DOE project aims to repurpose an 8,000-acre area of DOE-owned land that was formerly used in the U.S. nuclear weapons program.
,
Manhattan Project nuclear site reimagined as a 1 GW solar farm
A northwest view of the Hanford Site's clean energy lands (Credit: DOE)

A 580-square mile slice of semi-arid desert in southeast Washington that was used to produce nearly two-thirds of the plutonium used in the United States’ nuclear weapon stockpile is being reimagined as a 1 gigawatt (GW) solar farm with energy storage. If built to that capacity, it would be the largest solar project in the country.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced it will enter into realty negotiations with Hecate Energy for a solar project capable of delivering up to 1 gigawatt of clean energy within an 8,000-acre area of the former nuclear weapons production site.

The Hanford site, established in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project to produce plutonium for national defense, made materials for the Trinity Test and atomic bombs used to help end World War II. Weapons construction at Hanford contaminated the site and created millions of gallons of radioactive waste.

The project is planned for DOE-owned land at the Hanford Site as part of the Cleanup to Clean Energy initiative, which aims to repurpose parts of DOE-owned grounds— portions of which were previously used in the nation’s nuclear weapons program — to support the growth of clean energy in the U.S.

This Hanford Site Cleanup to Clean Energy initiative map identifies land in a proposal (Credit: DOE).

Hecate Energy will have the opportunity to negotiate a realty agreement for the development of a gigawatt-scale solar photovoltaic system with battery storage. The selection was made through a competitive qualifications-based process for evaluating and ranking proposals. It comes after public comments on a request for information in August 2023, a Cleanup to Clean Energy Information Day at Hanford in September 2023, and a request for qualifications issued in March 2024.

Since announcing the Cleanup to Clean Energy initiative in July 2023, DOE has announced the selection of developers for carbon pollution-free electricity projects in Idaho, Nevada, South Carolina, and now in Washington state. Home to the Hanford Site, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, a vibrant community, and tribal nations, this part of Washington has been critical to the nation for decades and is well-positioned to become a center of carbon-free power solutions.

Nuclear reactors at the Hanford site began to be decommissioned in the 1960s, with others later placed on standby after it was determined that a sufficient amount of weapons-grade plutonium had been produced. 53 million gallons of liquid radioactive waste, 25 million cubic feet of solid radioactive waste, and contaminated groundwater remained after operations slowed down. Cleanup operations began in the 1980s and are still ongoing, with focuses on restoring the nearby Columbia River corridor, converting a section of the land for long-term waste treatment and storage, and future-proofing the site.

Hecate Energy recently made news by submitting an unsolicited lease to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to acquire commercial offshore wind energy lease(s) on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) in the Gulf of Mexico. In response, BOEM is seeking information regarding whether competitive interest exists in the areas included in Hecate Energy’s request.