Guidelines for Utility-Scale Solar and Onshore Wind Energy Development in Washington State

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) developed these guidelines to assist developers of utility-scale solar and onshore wind energy projects in avoiding and minimizing impacts to Washington’s fish, wildlife, and habitat resources while planning, permitting, operating, and decommissioning their projects. Utility-scale solar and onshore wind refers to projects with a generation potential over one megawatt and generate energy that is sold to wholesale utility buyers and not directly to customers. These guidelines are specific to wildlife and habitats of Washington state and readers should be aware that several agencies, tribes, organizations, and other entities – and their guidelines – should be consulted during the siting, development, operation, and decommissioning of a project. This document replaces WDFW guidance originally published in the 2009 WDFW Wind Power Guidelines.

Utility-scale solar and onshore wind project development is critical for achieving Washington state's greenhouse gas targets and clean energy goals, as outlined in the Clean Energy Transformation Act (CETA) of 2019. However, these projects must be carefully planned to avoid, minimize, and mitigate impacts on the state's diverse and valuable ecological resources. WDFW is not responsible for the approval of construction permits (county or local permitting) or site certifications (state permitting) but serves as a technical expert and provides recommendations to regulatory authorities for ways to avoid, minimize, and mitigate impacts from development and land-use changes.

Washington’s landscapes provide essential habitats that support the state’s rich biodiversity. As demand for wind and solar energy increases, it is critical to meet these development needs, but not at the expense of sensitive habitats and species. These guidelines provide developers with a clear framework for avoiding areas of high conservation value and implementing best practices to avoid, minimize, and mitigate potential environmental impacts.

These guidelines aim to help developers in the early identification and avoidance of conservation priorities while considering practical siting requirements, such as existing electrical infrastructure, interconnection, land-use regulations, and other sensitive resources. WDFW recognizes that renewable energy siting decisions must incorporate these variables, in addition to ecological concerns, for viable project development.

The guidelines are organized into seven key steps corresponding to the different phases of project planning and development.

1. Avoidance through exploratory planning: This step encourages early engagement with WDFW and the use of planning tools to identify low-conflict areas for development, considering factors such as wildlife connectivity and landscape-level conservation priorities. Tribal engagement is also critical at this stage to understand what cultural resources could be impacted.
2. Preliminary project planning: This step focuses on site-specific considerations once a project site has been identified. This step provides guidance on conducting preliminary desktop and biological assessments and understanding the types of information needed for further consultation with WDFW.
3. Assessing wildlife and habitat on the project site: At this step, developers are expected to conduct detailed field surveys and prepare biological and vegetation reports that fully characterize the site’s wildlife and habitat values. These assessments may result in additional avoidance areas and will inform the project design and layout to minimize impacts.
4. Minimization: This step provides guidance regarding layout, construction activities, minimizing impacts to habitats and wildlife during operations, and more to further refine the project.
5. Compensatory mitigation: For any unavoidable temporary or permanent impacts to wildlife and habitats, WDFW will make recommendations to the permitting authority based on the latest management policies, best available science, and designed to ensure that mitigation efforts, where appropriate, are viable, effective, and timely.
6. Spatiotemporal buffers for construction and maintenance: This step provides guidance for developers to minimize impacts on habitat and wildlife during construction and operational maintenance activities of solar and wind projects.
7. Operational monitoring and adaptive management: This step provides recommendations for post-construction monitoring and data collection throughout the project’s operation phase.

Key information on Best Management Practices (BMPs), mitigation, and technical survey requirements is in the appendices.

• Appendix A. Biological Field Survey Protocols: This appendix specifies the methodologies required for assessing wildlife presence, habitat conditions, and vegetation types, ensuring data collection is consistent and scientifically robust.
• Appendix B. Best Management Practices: This appendix outlines BMPs for minimizing environmental impacts during project siting, construction, operations, and decommissioning. These BMPs include recommendations on erosion control, habitat preservation, and species protection.
• Appendix C. Compensatory Mitigation: This appendix outlines strategies for mitigation and provides a detailed table on acceptable mitigation types, ratios for various impact scenarios, and strategies to align with WDFW’s conservation goals.
• Appendix D. Cumulative Impacts Assessment: This appendix highlights the importance of evaluating landscape-level effects of multiple projects and maintaining ecological connectivity.
• Appendix E. Spatiotemporal Buffers for Construction and Maintenance: This appendix describes guidance on establishing protective buffers around sensitive habitats and species during critical periods.

Together, these appendices offer a comprehensive set of resources to help project proponents meet WDFW’s recommendations, ensuring that wind and solar energy projects are planned and implemented in ways that avoid, minimize, and mitigate impacts to Washington’s fish, wildlife, and habitats.

These guidelines are designed to be adaptable and will be updated as new scientific information becomes available. WDFW encourages collaboration and ongoing feedback from all interested parties to continuously improve the effectiveness of these guidelines and the compatibility of solar and wind development with the conservation of Washington’s ecological resources.