Tesla Buys 140 MW Texas Solar Output From Zelestra
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- Tesla signed a long-term PPA with Zelestra to take the entire 140 MWac output of the Lumen Farm solar project in northeast Texas, with construction set to begin in 2027 and operations starting in 2029 — neither company disclosed pricing or what the electricity will power.
- Zelestra, an EQT-backed renewable developer with a portfolio of more than 16 GW and a BloombergNEF top-10 ranking among corporate clean energy sellers, has also signed multiple Texas solar PPAs with Meta, including the 180-MWdc Palmera and 176-MWdc Skull Creek projects plus $600 million in green financing for a 440-MW portfolio.
- SolarCity, acquired by Tesla in 2016 for $2.6 billion as the largest US residential solar installer, saw deployments collapse from roughly 870 MW a year to a fraction after Tesla shut down sales channels — leaving the company dependent on outside developers for utility-scale supply despite selling Solar Roof, Powerwall, and Megapack products.
- Tesla has only recently begun rebuilding its solar business: leasing returned in late 2025, a US-made solar panel launched in January, and a 100-GW panel factory is rising near Houston — but the utility-scale gap remains, forcing the company to buy from rivals like Zelestra to cover Texas loads from Gigafactory Texas and AI compute.
- Zelestra's Lumen Farm PPA is the second deal with Tesla, following a 57-MWac 2024 agreement covering three solar plants in Spain's Castilla-La Mancha region — the new Texas contract marks the pair's first US partnership.
Why it matters: Tesla — a company that paid $2.6 billion for SolarCity, sells Powerwall and Megapack, and is building a 100-GW solar factory near Houston — is now buying utility-scale solar from the same developer (Zelestra) already feeding Meta's Texas data centers, because its own solar business collapsed after the 2016 acquisition. With ERCOT demand from Tesla's Gigafactory Texas and AI compute growing fast, the company cannot wait for its in-house supply to catch up and is now on the buyer side of the same hyperscaler solar competition it once could have led.
