1.2 GW solar farm rises at Texas coal site — coal stays
SkimNews Take
Co-locating a 1.2 GW solar farm with a still-operating 310 MW coal plant reveals that grid "transition" projects are often additive rather than substitutive — the existing transmission interconnection is valuable enough to reuse, yet the lignite baseload remains deemed worth running alongside the new renewable capacity.
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- Panamint Capital broke ground on the $1.7 billion, 1.2 GWdc Big Rooter Power solar farm at its Twin Oaks power station in Robertson County, Texas — what the company calls the largest solar project built at an existing coal mine in North America.
- The adjacent Twin Oaks 310 MW lignite-fired coal plant remains in operation with no announced retirement, making this a generation-stacking play rather than a coal-to-solar conversion.
- Construction is split into two phases: 491 MWdc Big Rooter West (online August 2028) and 658 MWdc Big Rooter East (breaking ground December 2026, online August 2029), expected to create more than 800 construction jobs.
- First Solar will supply roughly 2 million US-made panels from factories in Ohio, Louisiana, and Alabama; SOLV Energy is handling EPC; Nextpower is providing NX Horizon trackers; and the build uses more than 34,000 tons of US-made steel.
- Panamint has signed a long-term PPA running into the 2050s with an unnamed single investment-grade offtaker, and estimates Big Rooter West alone will contribute more than $66 million to the local economy over its lifetime.
- Once complete, the 10,000-acre Twin Oaks complex will host roughly 1.5 GW of coal and solar generation, 1.6 GWh of battery storage, more than 20 miles of new 345 kV transmission, and 790 MW of data center capacity.
- Per JLL's data center outlook, Texas is one of the fastest-growing US data center regions, with ERCOT power supply the primary constraint — which frames Panamint's decision to co-locate generation on-site.
Why it matters: The build locks in solar revenue on a PPA running into the 2050s while the 310 MW lignite unit keeps generating, sidestepping the political and capital costs of coal retirement. Co-locating 790 MW of data center capacity on the same 10,000-acre site lets Panamint monetize generation internally as ERCOT supply tightens — making this a real estate and offtaker hedge, not a transition story.
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