Tesla’s next big clean energy source is rising in the Arizona desert — SkimNews
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- ContourGlobal broke ground October 6 on Project Sterling, a 450 MW (509 MW DC) solar farm with battery storage spanning more than 2,000 acres in Mohave County, Arizona, about 20 miles north of Lake Havasu City, with commissioning targeted for 2028.
- Tesla signed a long-term power purchase agreement covering roughly 1 TWh per year — about 90% of Sterling's expected 1.1 TWh annual output — along with the associated renewable energy certificates.
- Project Sterling will pair more than 760,000 solar panels with over 300 LFP battery storage containers delivering up to 360 MW and storing 1.4 GWh, using liquid cooling and integrated fire protection to enable clean electricity delivery for up to 16 hours a day.
- Sterling will become ContourGlobal's largest renewable energy asset worldwide, connecting to the Western Area Power Administration's grid with secured transmission rights into the California Independent System Operator's electricity market, and is expected to employ around 400 construction workers through 2028 including local crews building a new 5.2-mile access road to historic Route 66.
Why it matters: Tesla is locking in roughly 1 TWh per year of long-term renewable supply from a single solar-plus-storage project — enough to power hundreds of thousands of homes — while the deal makes Sterling ContourGlobal's largest renewable asset globally and opens a transmission pathway into California's power market.
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