Arizona public power utility Salt River Project and Ørsted, recently marked the official start of operations for the Eleven Mile Solar Center, a 300-megawatt solar project and 300MW/1200-MWh battery energy storage system in Pinal County.
Eleven Mile Solar Center is SRP’s largest co-located solar and BESS project, providing power to businesses, homes, and Meta’s data center in Mesa, AZ.
Ørsted hosted a celebration attended by U.S. suppliers, SRP, community members, and local and state elected officials at Eleven Mile’s O&M facility.
With the addition of Eleven Mile, SRP has nearly 3,000 MW of carbon-free energy – including more than 1,400 MW of solar - serving its customers.
SRP also has nearly 1,300 MW of battery and pumped hydro storage supporting its grid. SRP is working to at least double the number of generating resources on its power system in the next 10 years to meet increasing energy demand in the Phoenix metropolitan area as it moves forward with the planned retirement of 1,300 MW of coal resources.
“The energy and storage capacity provided by the Eleven Mile Solar System plays an important role in helping meet SRP’s ambitious decarbonization goals while providing affordable and reliable energy to our customers,” said Bobby Olsen, Associate General Manager & Chief Planning, Strategy & Sustainability Executive at SRP. “We appreciate our partnership with Ørsted and Meta to bring more clean energy to our customers.”
Eleven Mile Solar Center joins Ørsted’s growing onshore portfolio, now generating over 5,000 MW across the U.S., with more capacity set to come online before the end of the year.
