Oregon to host nation’s largest solar-plus-storage installation: Sunstone Solar

In northeastern Oregon, nearly 9,500 acres of farmland will soon be transformed into a 1,200-megawatt solar project. State regulators approved Sunstone Solar, the nation’s largest proposed solar-plus-storage facility, last fall. Once up and running, the project will include up to 7,200 megawatt-hours of storage, and its nearly four million solar panels will produce enough clean electricity to power around 800,000 homes each year. Pine Gate Renewables, the North Carolina–based developer behind the project, touted a first-of-a-kind initiative to invest up to $11 million in local wheat farms to offset economic impacts on the region’s agriculture. Construction will begin in 2026.

Once constructed, Sunstone Solar will overshadow the current largest solar-plus-storage project operating in the U.S., which began providing up to 875 megawatts of solar and 3,287 megawatt-hours of battery storage last January. It’s also a big step up from existing solar farms in Oregon: The state’s largest operational solar project came online in April 2023, with 162 megawatts of solar capacity.

The Oregon project is unusual in that it aims to provide up to six hours of energy storage — notably higher than most battery plants. A report last year by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory stated that more than 90 percent of storage added in 2022 had a duration of four hours or less, due to regulatory incentives and the limitations of battery technology.