Five planned solar facilities will add 700 MW of capacity to a state that currently has only 376 MW of solar installed.
Leeward Renewable Energy (LRE) announced five solar projects in Oklahoma totaling over 700 MW and supported by long-term power purchase agreements with Google.
The Mayes County Solar Portfolio, which includes three of the projects, was recently purchased from Red River Renewable Energy. The facilities, according to LRE, are sited near Google’s data center operations in Pryor, Oklahoma.
The Mayes County Solar Portfolio consists of Salt Branch Solar (145 MW), Huckleberry Solar (125 MW), and Mayes Solar (102 MW). The portfolio is capable of powering the equivalent of over 865,000 homes per year and avoiding over 3.7 million metric tons of carbon emissions over the term of the PPA, according to LRE.
The other two projects include Twelvemile Solar Project 1 & 2 (152.5 MW) and the Twelvemile 3 Solar Project (200 MW), located in Southern Oklahoma.
All five of the solar projects will use First Solar modules, a LRE spokesperson told pv magazine USA. First Solar manufactures thin-film solar modules, mostly in the U.S. The company was unable to disclose other components in the installations.
Each of the solar facilities sits on approximately 1,000 acres of land, which will be maintained, according to LRE, to ensure proper ground cover, erosion control and stormwater management. In addition, vegetation management plans and best practices are implemented to establish native vegetation and manage overgrowth and invasive species. There may be other opportunities, the spokesperson said, for additional land stewardship activities, such as beekeeping, sheep grazing and pollinator habitats.
The projects will create over 300 construction jobs and contributing an estimated $76 million in tax revenue to Mayes County over their lifespan, according to LRE. In addition, LRE has donated over $60,000 to the local Red Cross, the Chamber of Commerce and other essential services.
The power purchase agreements (PPAs) were facilitated through LevelTen Energy’s Accelerated Process (LEAP) platform, which helps source and execute clean energy power PPAs. LevelTen developed the platform in conjunction with Google in 2023.
Google is one of the top U.S. companies are investing in record levels of solar and energy storage to power operations or offset use, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association’s (SEIA) released the ninth annual Solar Means Business report. The top solar and storage investors are also those with data centers, like Google, which are driving electricity demand to record highs.
“By partnering with Grand River Dam Authority (GRDA) and LRE, Google is furthering its ambition to power our facilities, including those in Oklahoma, with carbon-free energy around the clock by 2030,” said Amanda Peterson Corio, global head of data center energy, Google. “These power purchase agreements demonstrate how our scalable procurement approach is transforming the acquisition of clean energy and accelerating the development of carbon-free energy sources.“
LRE reports that it currently owns and operates thirty large scale wind, solar, and energy storage projects across the United States, totaling over 4 GW of generating capacity, with a goal of 10 GW of operating assets by 2028.
