A 1.2 GW solar farm is rising at a Texas coal site – but coal is staying

A large solar project is under construction in Texas, but it won't be replacing coal power. Panamint Capital has broken ground on Big Rooter Power, a $1.7 billion, 1.2 gigawatt solar farm at its Twin Oaks site in Robertson County, between Dallas and Houston. The company calls it the largest solar farm ever built at an existing coal site in North America. But the 310 megawatt coal-fired plant next door has no announced retirement plans and remains in operation.

The solar farm will be built in two phases: a 491 megawatt section now under construction, expected online in August 2028, and a 658 megawatt section starting in December 2026, expected online in August 2029. Together they're projected to create more than 800 construction jobs and contribute over $66 million to the local economy. The site will also get battery storage, new high-voltage transmission lines, and space for data centers, alongside the coal plant. First Solar will supply about 2 million American-made solar panels for the project.

This isn't a coal-to-clean-energy swap. It's an example of a utility adding solar, batteries, and grid capacity onto the same land as existing coal generation, largely to meet fast-growing electricity demand in Texas, driven in part by data centers. For a homeowner, this doesn't change anything about your own rebates or upgrades, but it's a sign of how much new demand — and new generation of all kinds, including fossil fuel — is being built to keep pace with growth on the Texas grid.