Independent power producer ContourGlobal has held a groundbreaking ceremony to mark the construction of Project Sterling, a hybrid solar-plus-storage facility in Mohave County, Arizona.
The project is privately funded after the company secured an equity bridge loan from an international banking syndicate. The Project Sterling project combines 450MWac of solar PV with 1.4 GWh of battery energy storage system (BESS), the latter comprising 300 storage containers of lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries. When operational, the site is predicted to generate more than 1.1 TWh of clean electricity per year.
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Around 90% of the energy produced by the installation will be sold under a power purchase agreement (PPA) with Tesla, signed in July 2026. The deal with the automotive manufacturer is said to be one of the largest hybrid (solar-plus-storage) offtake agreements signed to date.
The site will cover more than 2,000 acres in one of the sunniest locations in the US, and is expected to be complete in 2028. The site’s infrastructure will include a 5.2 mile road connecting it to Route 66.
“Arizona’s sun has been shining on this land for billions of years. Project Sterling will put it to work by turning sunlight into electricity and storing part of that energy for delivery after sunset. 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.
The groundbreaking ceremony came a week after ContourGlobal completed construction of a 324MW solar facility in Colorado, which to date is the company’s largest operational solar facility.
Arizona ranks fourth among US states in total installed solar capacity, with 13.2GW of solar in play, according to data from trade body the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA). Since 2022, the state’s annual solar installations have risen in number to provide over 2GW, the majority of which is for utility-scale facilities. The state is expected to add 18.4GW of new solar power over the next five years.
