Beargrass Community Solar
Hamilton, WA · Puget Sound Energy · Operational Q2 2026
739 kW DC / 500 kW AC · 1,274 Heliene 580 W modules · five SolarEdge SE100KUS inverters
Purpose
PSE's Community Solar program lets its electric customers buy into local solar without putting panels on their own property. PSE builds the arrays, divides them into shares, and credits subscribers on their bill for what their share actually produces. Renters, homeowners, and businesses can all take part, and PSE reserves a portion of every project at no cost for income-eligible customers, who are least likely to have a roof of their own to use.
The arrays sit on host properties across PSE's service area. Here, that is leased industrial roof space: the owner is paid to use the roof, and PSE funds, owns, and maintains the system. The connection is made on PSE's side of the meter, so the output goes to the grid and to subscribers rather than to the building underneath it.
Sulis’ Role & Project Challenges
Beargrass sits on the same campus as the Salal community solar project, but on a different building and on a different substation circuit, so they are separate interconnections rather than one project with two roofs. It runs to its own new 500 kVA PSE transformer, 480Y/277 V to 12.5 kV, onto a substation circuit via a supply-side tap. Sulis' contract covered all site preparation, civil works, and secondary feeder scope in addition to the DC/AC work typical of an industrial PV project.
As at Salal, the design had to satisfy PSE's Electric Service Handbook, its technical interconnection requirements for distributed energy resources, its engineering consultant design guide, and its telecoms specification for community solar; a heavier documentation load than a behind-the-meter project of the same size.
