Published 5:43 am Friday, July 31, 2026
By Lia Portillo
Construction on a $200-million solar farm project in Marion County is expected to begin early next year.
California-based Pathway Power will build the farm on 2,000 acres south of Avinger, east of Johnson Creek Reservoir and on both sides of Texas 49.
Lisa Leipzig, vice president of development for Pathway Power, said the project is still in its initial phases, but recent studies have given her and project developers more details about the farm’s ability to supply energy to the region’s power grid.
“We have been working on this project for a while, but now it’s at the stage where we can go to the community in good faith and say we believe we’re going to have grid access,” she said.
Marion County is part of the Southwest Power Pool, which serves Texas and other states.
Leipzig said the solar farm also will have the capability to function as a storage facility.
“It will be able to take energy from the electrical grid and then deploy it when it’s needed,” she said. “It could also store energy from the solar facility and then transmit that to the grid if there’s extra. A lot of Southwest Power Pool, unfortunately, has some significant capacity needs, electrical needs over the next 5 to 10 years – there’s expected to be shortages. So, this is one of the tools in the toolbox to solve that issue.
“What we do is we help build out the energy grid because American power and national security is very important to us,” she said. “We help the different communities we work with to have low-cost power.”
A solar farm is a large-scale project that produces renewable energy from the sun. Unlike typical solar panels installed in people’s homes, a solar farm is ground-mounted and serves multiple customers, according to treehugger.com.
Leipzig said Pathway Power is committed to using domestic products and labor.
“There’s a lot of positive things,” she said.  “One of the big things is jobs, and that’s mostly during the construction phase. There’s around 250 jobs. Then there’s also some jobs that are during the ongoing operations and maintenance phase of the project after it’s constructed.”
Aside from bringing local jobs to Marion County, Pathway Power project leaders will use American-manufactured solar panels, steel and electrical equipment when constructing the farm.
Leipzig explained that the solar farm is different from a data center, and it will not require any local water sources for maintenance.
“I think there was a misunderstanding earlier this year about where our project is, and our project is not a data center,” she said. “It’s solar and battery storage. Lake O’ the Pines, I understand, is many miles away.”
Additionally, Leipzig said the solar farm doesn’t need a large amount of water to operate.
“This project will use water during the construction phase,” she said. “Typically, that gets trucked in as opposed to using local sources. And then, the panels in this area, because of the amount of precipitation and rainwater, we’re not expecting to have to wash the panels during operations. But, if we do, we’ll use distilled water. It’s not going to come from Lake O’ the Pines.”
The farm is expected to be in operation for 30 to 40 years.
Pathway Power is seeking a tax abatement from Marion County that would reduce the amount of property taxes the company pays over a period of time.
The tax abatement process includes public hearings during Commissioners Court meetings and a vote by commissioners.
Since the farm will be built on private land, Marion County Judge Leward LaFleur said the only power that commissioners have regarding the project is approval or rejection of the tax abatement.
The county does not need to see any environmental studies or permits to allow Pathway Power to build or operate the solar farm, LaFleur said.
“The state of Texas has not given us the tools in order for us to make sure that these things are permitted properly or anything like that,” he said. “We just have to rely on the companies putting whatever permits they put in through the state or the federal government. There’s no permitting process here in Marion County for them to do anything.”
LaFleur said the project is still new to him, and he hopes to learn more about the solar farm during abatement hearings. Pathway Power staff attended Commissioners Court meetings in 2025 and have spoken to the court about the project.
“If there is a solar farm out there in the county, the benefits of it that we’re being told is that they’re going to hire people to work it, to manage it, to build it,” he said. “That’s a great asset to the people here, if it’s people here that are building it and maintaining it.”
Leipzig said Pathway Power will be holding open houses soon to meet the community and explain the project.
Lia Portillo is a Report for America corps member covering the Hispanic community in the area and more. She graduated from Northwestern State University of Louisiana where she hosted a student podcast called “Latino Living” and led the student newspaper. She’s excited to tell the stories of Harrison County.
Email her at lia.portillo@marshallnewsmessenger.com.

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