Global tech giant Amazon has been approved as the buyer of the 1.2GW Sunstone solar project in Oregon, one of the largest solar PV projects in the US.
The Sunstone site was developed and previously owned by Pine Gate Renewables, the US independent power producer (IPP), which filed for bankruptcy in November 2025. It includes 1.2GW of solar PV and 1.2GW of battery energy storage system (BESS) capacity, which is ready to build, having received permitting and approvals from the Oregon Energy Facility Siting Council (EFSC).
Try Premium for just $1
- Full premium access for the first month at only $1
- Converts to an annual rate after 30 days unless cancelled
- Cancel anytime during the trial period
Premium Benefits
- Expert industry analysis and interviews
- Digital access to PV Tech Power journal
- Exclusive event discounts
Or get the full Premium subscription right away
Or continue reading this article for free
Amazon’s acquisition was approved by the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, which granted its offer of US$83 million in cash via its specific project subsidiary, Oregon Solar I.
The move follows Amazon’s complaints back in November that an Oregon utility was not supplying sufficient power to its data centre projects in the state, where it has built numerous cloud computing data centres close to the banks of the Columbia River. Once fully operational, the Sunstone solar-plus-storage project will be one of the most significant renewable energy generation projects in the US.
To date, most of Amazon’s energy procurement has been via power purchase agreements (PPAs), and along with fellow Big Tech leviathans Meta and Google, Amazon led US solar power procurement deals in 2024. But the scale of Sunstone, and the fact that it is ready to be built with approvals and permits in place, makes it an attractive proposition for a company whose growing energy demand will be a significant story in the industry over the coming years.
As the power demands of these data centre hyperscalers continue to grow, owning their own power sources might become more common. Last month, Google’s parent company Alphabet announced the acquisition of Intersect Power, an energy project developer, with a view to developing more energy capacity “in lockstep with new data centre load”, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, said at the time.
Since declaring bankruptcy, Pine Gate’s roughly 10GW of project assets have been offered to the market, though the company says it has sufficient liquidity to continue operating in the meantime. Earlier this month, Israel-based project developer Nofar Energy bought 1GW worth of Pine Gate’s utility-scale solar assets across the Carolinas, Alabama and Texas for US$285 million.
