Energies Media
Someone just broke ground on a 1.2-gigawatt solar farm in the middle of an active Texas coal mine and plans to keep the coal burning.
In the scrubby flatlands of Robertson County, Texas, halfway between Dallas and Houston, construction crews have broken ground on an energy project that defies conventional logic. The site is an active lignite coal mine. The new addition is a massive solar farm.
Spanning 10,000 acres, the $1.7 billion Big Rooter Power project in Bremond will generate 1.2 gigawatts of electricity—enough to rank as the largest solar installation ever built on a North American brownfield site, injecting over $66 million into the local economy.
Panamint Capital, a woman-led energy investment firm backed in part by private equity titan KKR, has officially started construction on Big Rooter Power. Built in two distinct phases, the initial 491-megawatt phase, Big Rooter West, will come online by August 2028, followed by the 658-megawatt Big Rooter East in August 2029. 
Renewable contractor SOLV Energy is leading construction using two million American-made First Solar panels and Nextracker mounting systems. The site will also feature 1.6 gigawatt-hours of battery storage, 34,000 tons of American steel, and over 20 miles of new 345-kilovolt transmission lines.
Yet what makes Big Rooter remarkable is its neighbor: the active 310-megawatt Twin Oaks coal plant and adjacent Calvert surface mine. Neither is shutting down.
Founded in 2019, Panamint Capital specializes in squeezing maximum value out of legacy energy infrastructure. When Panamint acquired Twin Oaks and the Calvert mine in 2023, CEO Apolka Totth intended to leverage existing grid interconnections, land, and transmission lines.
Reusing brownfield infrastructure dramatically slashes development costs and speeds up deployment compared to greenfield builds.
Furthermore, Texas energy demand is exploding. Extreme summer heat and rapid manufacturing growth have pushed the state grid to its limits, creating an urgent race to add every megawatt of available power.
Big Rooter is the flagship of a quiet national movement repurposing former fossil-fuel land. Last year, the 186-megawatt Tilden Solar Project in southern Illinois and the 111-megawatt Martin County Solar Project in eastern Kentucky both opened on abandoned mine property.
In Louisiana, construction is underway on the 240-megawatt Dolet Hills Solar Project at a former coal site. Meanwhile, developer BrightNight is advancing Starfire, a 410-megawatt project on Kentucky mine land with electric truck manufacturer Rivian as an anchor customer.
These brownfields let developers sidestep growing rural backlash against building solar arrays on prime farmland.
Navigating policy shifts has been critical. Under the 2021 Infrastructure Act and 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, brownfield projects earned bonus tax incentives by qualifying as “energy communities.”
Although federal policy has grown volatile—with tax credit rollbacks and cancelled grants like Pennsylvania’s Mineral Basin project—Panamint locked in federal Investment Tax Credits covering 50% of project costs before policy deadlines.
State-level support also remains strong: states like Ohio and Colorado have passed laws incentivizing renewable builds on industrial land, while non-profits like The Nature Conservancy are advancing 25 mine-land solar projects across Appalachia.
Panamint has been candid about keeping Twin Oaks burning, calling it an economically essential provider of grid reliability with no early retirement planned. But why keep a coal plant operational alongside two million solar panels? The answer—and the ultimate hook behind this $1.7 billion bet—isn’t just selling energy back to the Texas grid.
Panamint is quietly developing a 790-megawatt “Batch Zero” hyperscale data center campus directly on-site. Driven by the relentless power demands of artificial intelligence, these data centers require round-the-clock, unbreakable power.
By combining solar, massive battery storage, and existing coal generation, Panamint can offer tech giants continuous, baseload energy right where it is generated. Texas isn’t choosing between coal and renewables—it’s bundling them together to feed the AI boom.
Kelly is an experienced writer with 15 years of experience exploring the big stories that shape our world, from tech breakthroughs and space exploration to climate, energy, and the fascinating quirks of science. She has a talent for turning complex ideas into sharp, memorable insights that stay with readers long after they’ve finished reading.
Kelly is an experienced writer with 15 years of experience exploring the big stories that shape our world, from tech breakthroughs and space exploration to climate, energy, and the fascinating quirks of science. She has a talent for turning complex ideas into sharp, memorable insights that stay with readers long after they’ve finished reading.
Kelly is an experienced writer with 15 years of experience exploring the big stories that shape our world, from tech breakthroughs and space exploration to climate, energy, and the fascinating quirks of science. She has a talent for turning complex ideas into sharp, memorable insights that stay with readers long after they’ve finished reading.

source