Enel Pays $760 Million for 810 MW of Solar Already Contracted to Meta and Google
- AI Energy Demand Data Centers News
Marin Holt
- 0
- 7 minutes read
- Purchase price: $760 million
- Solar capacity acquired: 810 MW DC
- Expected annual output: 1.6 TWh
- Faraday plant, Utah County, Utah: 682 MW DC
- Skyhawk plant, Obion County, Tennessee: 127 MW DC
Enel closed a $760 million purchase of two operating US solar plants from Excelsior Energy Capital on September 10. The deal moves 810 MW DC of capacity whose output is already contracted to Meta and Google. The larger asset is the 682 MW DC Faraday plant in Utah County, Utah, which reached commercial operation in September 2025. Faraday sells under a 20-year power purchase agreement with PacifiCorp through Rocky Mountain Power’s Schedule 34 green energy tariff. Meta buys that output to offset its own use in the same territory. The second plant is the 127 MW DC Skyhawk site in Obion County, Tennessee. It has run since 2023 under a long-term agreement with the Tennessee Valley Authority. Google takes Skyhawk’s electricity and environmental attributes through the TVA Green Invest program. Enel expects the pair to average about 1.6 TWh a year.
Why It Matters
Neither Meta nor Google was a party to this deal, and neither had to be. Both buy through a utility green tariff rather than straight from the plant owner. The assets therefore changed hands without disturbing the contracts that give them value, which is exactly what made the exit clean. It also sets a limit on what the money did. The hyperscaler demand that gets cited as the reason for new solar build is here supporting a transfer of plants that were already running. Faraday started up a year ago. Skyhawk has run since 2023. No new megawatt reaches the grid because of this $760 million.
Critical Perspective
Enel paid $760 million for 810 MW DC that was already generating and already sold. Faraday has run since September 2025 and Skyhawk since 2023, so the buyer took on no construction risk and no offtake risk. PacifiCorp and the Tennessee Valley Authority sit between the panels and the two technology companies whose names make this sound like data center growth. If hyperscaler demand is what funds new capacity, why did the largest exit in Excelsior’s history require no new capacity at all?
The Same Deal, Two Capacity Numbers
Trade coverage put this transaction at two different sizes on the same day. Enel described a portfolio of 810 MW, counting direct-current panel capacity: 682 MW DC at Faraday plus 127 MW DC at Skyhawk. PV Tech headlined the deal at 625 MW, counting alternating-current output at the interconnection: 525 MW AC at Faraday plus 100 MW AC at Skyhawk. Both numbers describe the same steel. The gap between them is the DC-to-AC ratio the developers built to, not a disagreement about what Enel bought. It is worth holding onto whenever a portfolio gets priced or compared per megawatt, because the denominator is a choice.
What Has Not Closed Yet
The solar close is one piece of a larger portfolio Enel agreed to buy from Excelsior in February 2026. Roughly 205 MW of wind capacity is still outstanding. Enel says it expects that part to complete in the fourth quarter, pending regulatory approval. The release does not name the wind project. Excelsior’s own website lists a 204.7 MW White Creek Wind project among its current holdings. MGRID could not independently confirm that White Creek is the asset in question. Alex Ellis, co-founder and partner at Excelsior, called the sale the firm’s largest exit to date. Enel now counts 13 GW of wind, solar and storage in the United States. Its Enel Green Power arm manages a 68 GW fleet worldwide.
Sources
- pv magazine USA, “Excelsior Energy Capital and Enel complete $760M transaction for solar projects serving Meta and Google” (Sept. 11, 2026)
- PV Tech, “Enel buys 625MW US solar portfolio from Excelsior Energy Capital” (Sept. 2026)
- PE Hub, “Excelsior Energy Capital exits two solar plants to Enel” (Sept. 2026)
- Enel Group, “Enel signed agreements for the acquisition of an 830 MW portfolio of wind and solar plants in USA” (February 2026)
