ContourGlobal has started construction on Project Sterling, a solar-plus-storage plant in Mohave County, Arizona, about 20 miles north of Lake Havasu City.
The facility will pair 509 megawatts-peak (MWp)/450 megawatts-alternating current (MWac) of solar PV with 360 megawatts (MW)/1.4 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of battery storage on more than 2,000 acres of Mojave Desert land.
Construction is expected to run through 2028 and employ an average of about 400 workers. Once complete, the site will host more than 760,000 solar modules and over 300 lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery containers with liquid cooling and integrated fire protection.
ContourGlobal designed the plant to deliver power for up to 16 hours a day, and it expects annual generation of more than 1.1 terawatt-hours (TWh), making Sterling the company’s largest renewable asset anywhere in the world.
“Our teams engineered the project around the specific needs of our customer, enabling it to deliver reliable clean power for up to 16 hours a day,” said Antonio Cammisecra, President & CEO of ContourGlobal, in a statement. “We are thrilled to celebrate this milestone with them and with the people who will now build this plant safely, with respect for the local community and the land of the Mojave Desert.”
Tesla is the offtaker, with a long-term power purchase agreement covering roughly 90% of the plant’s output. ContourGlobal says it is one of the largest corporate solar-plus-storage PPAs signed for a single hybrid plant in the U.S. and the biggest in its own history.
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