Big Tech's insatiable appetite for clean power is reshaping the American energy landscape
KEY DEVELOPMENTS
- Enbridge, Meta Unveil $1.2B Wyoming Solar-Storage Project: The 365 MW Cowboy Project near Cheyenne, paired with 1,600 MWh of Tesla batteries, becomes Wyoming's second-largest planned solar installation and expands the Enbridge-Meta partnership to 1.6 GW across North America. Read More: PV Magazine USA.
- Repsol's 825MW Texas Solar Farm Begins Operations: The Pinnington project — now the largest renewable facility ever to reach commercial operation in Texas — went live with 1.5 million panels and capacity to offset roughly one million tons of carbon annually. Read More: Solar Builder.
- New Mexico Regulators Approve $9B Utility Resource Plan: SPS won approval for 3.8 GW of new capacity blending 1,100 MW of wind, 189 MW of solar, and 472 MW of battery storage alongside natural gas, drawing mixed reactions from clean energy advocates. Read More: Utility Dive.
- Google Signs 15-Year Oklahoma Solar PPA: Enlight Renewable Energy locked in a 200 MWac power purchase agreement with the search giant, adding to a surge of corporate clean energy procurement across the Southern Plains. Read More: PV Tech.
- Antora Deploys 5-GWh Thermal Battery in South Dakota: The startup's massive heat battery at a biofuels facility near Big Stone City converts surplus wind energy into industrial steam, marking one of the largest single thermal storage deployments in the country. Read More: Canary Media.
Solar & Storage
Texas continues to cement its status as the undisputed capital of American solar. Repsol's Pinnington project, the built by Black & Veatch in northern Texas, is now commercially operational — making it the single largest renewable energy installation to reach that milestone in the state's history. With approximately 1.5 million panels spread across the site, the Spanish energy company says the project will displace about one million tons of carbon emissions per year, roughly equivalent to taking 200,000 cars off the road. Read More: 825 MW facility.
Just down the road in Callahan County, the first 400 MW phase of Enbridge's is now delivering power to an eclectic group of corporate off-takers: AT&T, Toyota, PepsiCo, and industrial manufacturer Donaldson Company. Enbridge expects to bring the 415 MW second phase online by year's end, which would push the combined project to 815 MW — nearly rivaling Pinnington's scale. The diversity of buyers underscores how corporate clean energy procurement has moved well beyond the tech sector and into mainstream manufacturing and consumer goods. Read More: Sequoia Solar project.
But it is tech that remains the 800-pound gorilla. Meta and Enbridge's announcement of the — a $1.2 billion, 365 MW solar facility paired with a massive 1,600 MWh battery storage system near Cheyenne, Wyoming — represents a new frontier for data center-driven renewables. Tesla will supply and service the batteries, adding another high-profile name to the partnership. The project expands the Enbridge-Meta renewable energy alliance to approximately 1.6 GW across North America, a portfolio that would rank among the largest corporate clean energy commitments globally. Wyoming, long synonymous with coal and natural gas, is now attracting serious solar investment as developers seek cheap land and growing grid interconnection opportunities in the Mountain West. Read More: Cowboy Project.
Meanwhile, Google secured a with Enlight Renewable Energy for a 200 MWac solar project in Oklahoma, continuing the search giant's aggressive push to match its data center load with clean energy. And in the Southeast, for Appalachian Power, a utility serving parts of Virginia, West Virginia, and Tennessee — a region historically underserved by solar development. Enel Group also quietly spanning Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina for approximately $140 million, signaling continued European investor confidence in American renewables despite ongoing policy uncertainty under the Trump administration. Read More: 15-year power purchase agreement, EDP Renewables will develop a 100 MW solar project, acquired a 287 MW solar portfolio.
Battery storage continues its breakneck expansion across the country. Beyond the Cowboy Project's 1,600 MWh system, a wave of new BESS deployments is advancing from coast to coast: a , new installations in San Antonio and Texas City, and 60 MWh of fresh storage capacity in upstate New York. In New Mexico, DESRI and Tierra Adentro Growth Capital paired with 80 MW/320 MWh of battery storage in San Juan County, contracted to supply the County of Los Alamos under a long-term PPA. These projects arrive on the heels of last week's record-breaking Q1 storage installation data — 9.7 GWh — suggesting the sector's momentum is far from peaking. Read More: 100 MW project near San Diego, broke ground on 270 MW of solar.
On the innovation front, Antora Energy is deploying a at a biofuels facility near Big Stone City, South Dakota. The system converts cheap overnight wind energy into clean industrial steam, offering a novel solution for decarbonizing heavy industry. At 5 GWh, it dwarfs most lithium-ion battery installations and represents a fundamentally different approach to the storage challenge — one focused on heat rather than electrons. And at the University of Michigan, the school's has brought its first two campus solar arrays online, with plans to install 2.5 MW across seven locations. It's a small project by utility standards, but another sign that institutional buyers are moving beyond rhetoric to steel-in-ground commitments. Read More: 5-gigawatt-hour thermal energy storage system, "Maize Rays" initiative.
Wind Energy
Wind news was comparatively sparse Wednesday, though one unusual deal drew attention: an with Burger King UK, an unconventional cross-border arrangement that underscores how American wind assets are finding creative off-take structures in global markets. Details on the project's capacity were limited, but the deal reflects growing European corporate demand for verified renewable energy credits — even when the electrons are generated thousands of miles away. Read More: Alaska-based wind farm signed a corporate power purchase agreement.
The bigger wind story lies embedded in New Mexico's newly approved SPS resource plan, which includes 1,100 MW of new wind capacity as the largest single technology component of the $9 billion portfolio. That wind allocation dwarfs the plan's 189 MW of solar, reflecting the Southern Plains' continued comparative advantage for onshore wind generation and existing transmission infrastructure optimized for wind flows.
Policy & Markets
New Mexico's Public Regulation Commission handed SPS — a subsidiary of Xcel Energy — , a decision that will shape the state's energy mix for years to come. The plan's 3.8 GW of new capacity is substantial, but clean energy advocates are grumbling about the "gas-heavy" label: while 1,100 MW of wind, 189 MW of solar, and 472 MW/1.9 GWh of battery storage represent meaningful renewable commitments, the plan also leans significantly on new natural gas generation. For a state that has positioned itself as a clean energy leader — and just weeks ago joined a four-state geothermal alliance — the approval represents a pragmatic compromise between decarbonization goals and grid reliability demands. Read More: approval for its $9 billion resource plan.
The decision also highlights a tension playing out nationwide: utilities are under enormous pressure to add capacity quickly to serve surging load from data centers, manufacturing reshoring, and electrification. With interconnection queues backed up for years and permitting timelines uncertain under the current Trump administration's shifting regulatory priorities, gas turbines offer a faster path to meeting near-term reliability needs — even as long-term economics increasingly favor renewables and storage. SPS's plan, with its blend of wind, solar, batteries, and gas, may end up as a template other Western utilities follow.
LOOKING AHEAD
- Enbridge Sequoia Phase 2 Timeline: The developer expects to bring the second 415 MW phase of the Sequoia Solar project in Texas online by year-end, which would push total capacity past 800 MW — watch for construction updates and additional PPA announcements through the summer.
- Storage Pipeline Acceleration: With Q1 2026 installations already setting records at 9.7 GWh and new BESS projects announced this week from California to New York, the industry is on pace to shatter annual deployment records — upcoming interconnection decisions will determine how much of the pipeline converts to operational capacity.
- Corporate PPA Surge Continues: Meta, Google, Toyota, PepsiCo, and AT&T all appeared as clean energy buyers this week alone; expect Fortune 500 sustainability reports due in June to trigger another wave of procurement announcements as companies race to meet near-term climate commitments.
TODAY'S QUICK ANSWERS
Q: What does Meta's $1.2 billion Wyoming project signal about data center energy procurement?
A: It signals that hyperscalers are moving beyond simply buying renewable energy credits to co-developing massive generation-plus-storage assets in states not traditionally associated with solar. Wyoming offers cheap land, favorable permitting, and increasingly available transmission — and Meta's willingness to pair 365 MW of solar with 1,600 MWh of Tesla batteries shows these companies want dispatchable clean power, not just nameplate capacity. Developers with integrated solar-storage proposals are now best positioned to capture this demand.
Q: Why should developers pay attention to New Mexico's $9 billion SPS resource plan approval?
A: Because it reveals how regulators in even climate-forward states are balancing decarbonization with reliability as load growth accelerates. The plan's 1,761 MW of renewables and storage is significant, but the substantial gas component shows that utilities can still win approval for fossil generation when framed as necessary for grid stability. Developers should note the 1,100 MW wind allocation — the largest tranche — as evidence that the Southern Plains wind market remains robust and that transmission-ready wind projects in the region will find willing utility buyers.
Q: What does Antora's 5 GWh thermal battery mean for industrial decarbonization?
A: It opens a commercially viable pathway for heavy industry to use cheap off-peak wind power as process heat — something lithium-ion batteries can't economically deliver at scale. If the South Dakota deployment performs as designed, converting surplus wind into industrial steam, it could unlock demand from refineries, chemical plants, and food processors that collectively account for roughly 25% of U.S. carbon emissions. Watch this technology closely as a complement, not competitor, to conventional battery storage.
THE BOTTOM LINE: Corporate buyers — led by tech giants but increasingly joined by manufacturers and consumer brands — are now committing to gigawatt-scale clean energy portfolios that pair solar with massive battery storage, effectively building their own dispatchable power supply and reshaping where and how fast American renewables get built.