1.2GW Solar Farm Breaks Ground on Active Texas Coal Mine
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- Panamint Capital broke ground on the 1.2-GW Big Rooter Power solar farm in Bremond, Texas — a $1.7 billion project the developer calls the largest solar array ever built at a brownfield site in North America.
- Big Rooter will be built in two phases: a 491-MW section coming online in August 2028 and 658 MW starting in August 2029, alongside 1.6 GWh of battery storage and 20 miles of new extra-high-voltage transmission lines.
- Panamint acquired the neighboring 310-MW Twin Oaks coal plant and Calvert surface mine in 2023 and plans to keep the coal facility running with no early retirement — the company is also studying expansion of the mine and construction of a coal rail terminal.
- Big Rooter secured a 50% federal investment tax credit by qualifying as an DOE-designated "energy community" site and sourcing modules from First Solar and racks from Nextpower, locking in incentives before Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on July 4, 2025.
- Most coal-to-solar projects — including Illinois's 186-MW Tilden and Kentucky's 111-MW Martin County arrays — sit on retired mine land, making Big Rooter's pairing with an actively operating coal mine unusual within the subsector.
- The Trump administration phased out solar and wind tax credits via OBBBA and scrapped at least one DOE mine-land award (Mineral Basin Solar Power) as part of $7.6 billion in canceled clean energy grants in 2024 Harris-voting states, complicating financing for rival brownfield developers.
Why it matters: Big Rooter exemplifies Texas's all-of-the-above energy approach: 1.2 GW of new solar will be built at an active coal mine without retiring the neighboring 310-MW Twin Oaks plant. Panamint locked in a 50% federal investment tax credit before the One Big Beautiful Bill Act phased out solar incentives — a financing window other brownfield developers lost when the Trump administration scrapped $7.6 billion in clean energy grants.
