Oregon greenlights one of the largest solar and storage projects in the US

Renewable energy developer, financer, and operator Pine Gate Renewables has been granted permission from the Oregon Energy Facility Siting Council to construct the state’s largest solar array and a battery energy storage system.

At its November 14 meeting, the council approved the Final Order on the Application for Site Certificate (ASC) for the Sunstone Solar Project, formerly known as Echo Solar, shortly thereafter issuing a site certificate for the construction, operation, and retirement of the facility in Morrow County, Oregon.

A map indicating the location of Pine Gate’s Sunstone Solar Project. Courtesy: Oregon Energy Facility Siting Council

If built to its intended capacity, Sunstone Solar will be one of the largest, if not the largest, renewable energy projects in the United States. It is planned to have up to 1.2 gigawatts (GW) of generating capacity via nearly 4 million solar panels and up to 7,200 megawatt hours (MWh) of paired battery energy storage. The site is expected to provide clean, renewable power for up to 800,000 homes.

Construction on the project will include building an interconnection substation, up to six collector substations, up to four operations and maintenance (O&M) facilities, and up to 9.5 miles of 230-kilovolt (kV) overhead transmission lines, in addition to other structural work including roads, fencing, and gates.

Farming the sun

Sunstone will take a large chunk of usable farmland out of production. It is authorized to occupy up to approximately 9,442 acres (14.75 sq. miles) of private land zoned for Exclusive Farm Use within an approximately 10,960-acre (17-sq. mile) site, which is about 15 miles northeast of Lexington, OR.

The Oregonian notes the area has been cultivated in dryland winter wheat, and more than half of the site is considered “high-value” farmland. The state cracked down on solar siting in such places five years ago, but large-scale projects have found ways around restrictions by proving a site’s potential economic benefits to the local economy and mitigating the total loss of farmland.

Another project developer, owner, and operator, Doral Renewables, is plenty familiar with the arithmetic necessary to get projects approved while still maintaining critical agriculture. Doral just finished the first 400 MW phase of the colossal Mammoth Solar in Indiana, which will have 1.3 GW of clean capacity by the time it’s finished. Doral president and CEO Nick Cohen approaches the farmland conundrum with a clever line of thinking.

“We’re farming the sun, which is what they’re doing anyhow,” he notes, pointing out that a lot of farmers near Mammoth are using their crops for ethanol production- just another (dirtier) fuel. “I don’t see how it’s different that now it’s just going straight to electricity,” Cohen surmises.

Doral is making active efforts to return to traditional farming on small farms, leaning into an agrivoltaics pilot and maintaining close relationships with farmers in Mammoth’s footprint. It is unclear if Pine Gate plans to employ similar tactics at Sunstone Solar.

“There was a time in America when small farms grew food,” Cohen said in a recent chat with Renewable Energy World. “They produced food as a business. And that’s one of the things that our projects do, is we bring the heritage farming back to the small farms.”


Construction on Sunstone Solar is expected to begin in 2026, although the Pine Gate subsidiary has until November 18, 2027, to comply with applicable pre-construction site certificate conditions and start putting steel in the ground. It has up to three years to complete construction once work has begun.

The project will put a sizable dent in Oregon’s state climate goals, which require its two largest electric utilities, Portland General Electric and Pacific Power, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2030 and be emission-free by 2040. PGE currently operates the region’s largest battery energy storage system, two 200 MW/800MWh BESS commissioned in 2023, which will be dwarfed by the Sunstone BESS once operational.

Pine Gate Renewables owns and operates more than a dozen other projects in Oregon. It purchased what will be known as Sunstone from Gallatin Partners in 2022. This fall, Pine Gate closed on a $288 million preferred equity investment with funds affiliated with Blackstone Credit and Insurance (Blackstone) supporting six solar projects in two states totaling 780 MW of capacity. All six of the projects are backed by corporate offtake agreements. Their locations have not been publicly announced.

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