AES just completed the first half of Bellefield, which will become the largest solar + storage facility in the US.
The 1,000-megawatt (MW) Bellefield 1 project in Kern County, California, includes 500 MW of solar and 500 MW of four-hour battery storage, all under a 15-year contract with Amazon. When the full 2,000 MW Bellefield project is done, it will be the biggest solar-plus-storage installation in the country.
“Completing the first 1,000 MW of Bellefield demonstrates how rapidly solar and storage can be deployed to meet the growing energy demand of data centers,” said AES CEO Andrés Gluski.
AES has locked in deals with “major global hyperscalers” – think tech giants like Amazon and Meta – for more than 10 gigawatts of clean power. Bellefield is a big part of that.
To speed up the build and make it safer, AES used its own robot helper, Maximo. This AI-powered robotic system helped crews install solar panels faster and with more precision.
Once the full 2 GW project is online, Bellefield will generate enough electricity to power the equivalent of around 467,000 homes annually. It’s expected to prevent more than 1 million metric tons of CO2 emissions annually and boost air quality in the region.
Construction of Bellefield 1 created more than 700 union jobs, and AES says Bellefield 2, which is expected to wrap in 2026, will create around 1,000 union jobs at peak.
AES says it will start recognizing revenue from Bellefield 1 later this year, right on schedule.
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