Standard Solar has bought two solar projects in eastern Washington from OneEnergy Renewables. Enerdatics records the portfolio at 15.79 MW. The grid will see 13 MW. Both figures are correct, and the distance between them is the part of this deal worth understanding.
Key takeaways
- Standard Solar has acquired the Palouse Junction and Cunningham solar projects in eastern Washington, United States, from OneEnergy Renewables, in its first collaboration with the developer in that state.
- The portfolio totals 15.79 MWdc, comprising the 12.1 MWdc and 10 MWac Palouse Junction project in Connell, Franklin County, and the 3.69 MWdc and 3 MWac Cunningham project in Adams County, for a combined alternating current rating of 13 MWac.
- Palouse Junction is expected to generate about 22.3 GWh in its first year of operation and Cunningham about 6.91 GWh, with both projects targeting completion in the first quarter of 2027.
- Franklin Public Utility District will offtake the Palouse Junction output and Big Bend Electric Cooperative will offtake the Cunningham output, making both buyers consumer owned utilities rather than corporate or subscriber offtakers.
- OneEnergy Renewables is responsible for development and for engineering, procurement and construction on both projects, with construction at Palouse Junction having started in March 2026.
Why does a 15.79 MW portfolio connect at 13 MW?
A solar project carries two capacity ratings and they are measured at different points. The direct current rating counts the panels. The alternating current rating counts what the inverters can push onto the grid, and it is the figure the interconnection agreement is written against. The ratio between the two is the inverter loading ratio, and a number above one is deliberate rather than accidental: panels cost less than inverters and grid capacity, so a modestly oversized array fills more hours of the day at full output.
Across these two projects that ratio is 1.21. In capacity terms it means 2.79 MW of panels, or 17.7 percent of the headline figure, that the grid never counts. In revenue terms it is not a loss at all, because those panels are working in the morning and evening hours when the inverters are nowhere near their ceiling. It is the same arithmetic that leaves European Energy's Snakes Meadow project carrying 57.4 MW of panels on a 45 MVA grid connection, and it is why a per MW figure says nothing until the denominator is specified.
What is Standard Solar bringing that OneEnergy could not supply?
Equipment, and the certainty of already owning it. OneEnergy is handling development and construction on both projects, which covers the two things a developer is usually short of on its own account. Standard Solar's contribution is a balance sheet that can hold the assets for their operating life and an inventory of panels procured ahead of the deadlines governing US solar tax credits.
Safe harbouring means committing enough capital to equipment in a given year that projects built later still qualify for that year's credit regime. Enerdatics reported in March 2026 that Standard Solar held 512 MW of safe harboured solar panels, bought early enough to fix a tax credit vintage for projects that had not yet started construction. In a market where module procurement is the step most likely to slip a schedule, that inventory is the acquisition currency. Standard Solar has said it is seeking further projects in Washington and across the Pacific Northwest on the same basis.
Who is buying the power, and why does that matter here?
Franklin Public Utility District and Big Bend Electric Cooperative. Neither is a technology company and neither is a community solar subscription platform, which is what most US distributed generation has been built for over the last three years. A public utility district is a consumer owned utility created under state law, and an electric cooperative is owned by the members it serves. Both buy power to serve load rather than to meet a corporate emissions target, which lengthens the contracting horizon and makes credit a different kind of question.
It also explains the sizing. Palouse Junction at 10 MWac and Cunningham at 3 MWac are scaled to the distribution systems they feed, not to a subscriber base that could be any size at all. Palouse Junction carries two further features pointing the same way: sheep graze the site to manage vegetation around the modules, and the design accommodates pollinator gardens of native species active from April to November. Interconnection planning for Palouse Junction also included a proposed 10 MW battery alongside the 10 MW of solar, which Enerdatics flags as an indication of potential future storage at the site rather than a committed project.
Enerdatics records 141 distributed generation solar transactions in the United States since the start of 2024, and nine of them carry a disclosed value. Those nine run from $0.20 million per MW, invested by Apollo Global Management into a 500 MW Bullrock Renewables portfolio in April 2025, to $2.41 million per MW paid by Solar Advocate Development for a 17 MW community solar portfolio sold by Powerbank Corp in December 2025, a twelve fold range inside one asset class in one market. Washington is thinner still. Enerdatics records five solar transactions in the state since the start of 2024, including this one, and not one of them carries a disclosed price.
What does the deal signal for US distributed solar?
Price opacity at this end of the market is not an accident of reporting. A sample of 141 transactions carrying nine prices means the clearing level for a sub 20 MW project is effectively private, and buyers are underwriting against their own cost stacks rather than against observable comparables. Enerdatics puts the median transaction size in that set at 18 MW, and 49 of the 96 deals with a stated capacity fall below 20 MW. This is a market of small, individually negotiated trades in which the thing being competed for is rarely the asset by itself.
What is being competed for is the ability to finish. Equipment position, tax credit vintage and an EPC relationship decide which buyer can carry a late stage project to commercial operation on the date the offtaker was promised, and those are the terms Standard Solar has been transacting on all year. It bought a 48.4 MW community solar portfolio in New Mexico in March 2026 on the same logic. The capacity mismatch in Washington is the smaller story. The larger one is that in a market with nine disclosed prices, what a buyer brings to the table is more legible than what it pays.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between the 15.79 MW and 13 MW figures for this portfolio?15.79 MW is the direct current rating of the panels across both projects. 13 MW is the combined alternating current rating of the inverters, which is what the grid interconnection is written against. The ratio between them, 1.21, is the inverter loading ratio.
Who will buy the power from the two projects?Franklin Public Utility District will take the output of the 12.1 MWdc Palouse Junction project in Franklin County, and Big Bend Electric Cooperative will take the output of the 3.69 MWdc Cunningham project in Adams County.
Was a price disclosed for the transaction?No. Enerdatics records no disclosed value for this deal, which is consistent with the wider state market: none of the five solar transactions in Washington since the start of 2024 carries a disclosed price.
Enerdatics tracks distributed generation solar M&A across every US state, including the nine transactions since 2024 that disclosed a price and the 132 that did not. Explore Enerdatics for the full comparables set behind this analysis.
