A Virginia company plans to bid on 4,000 acres of state trust land to build a utility-scale solar farm outside of Buckeye.
Apex Clean Energy applied for a 30-year commercial lease on the parcel of land off of State Route 85 and Gas Pipeline Road in Arizona in 2023, according to documents submitted with the Arizona State Land Department. It goes up for auction in two weeks with the minimum bid starting at over $43 million.
The 350-megawatt Grand Verde Solar project would provide enough energy to power over 100,000 homes, according to Apex’s website.
More than $700 million in improvements are proposed alongside the solar array, which Apex and some additional equity partners are expected to cover. The improvements include new access roads, underground and overhead transmission, an on-site maintenance facility, a substation and battery energy storage systems.
If it wins the bid and gets Maricopa County’s approval to develop, Apex would plan to begin construction in the next 18 to 24 months and operations in 2028. Apex is the proposed long-term owner and operator of the solar project.
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