How a Historic Mojave Desert Base Became the World’s Largest Solar Storage Site

How a Historic Mojave Desert Base Became the World’s Largest Solar Storage Site

By
Pat Morgan

Publish Date:August 9, 2026

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📰 The quick summary: One of the largest solar and battery storage installations in the world now sits on a historic California desert site, giving the grid a reliable source of clean energy even after the sun goes down.
📈 One key stat: The project holds 3,287 megawatt hours of battery storage, making it the largest combined solar and storage installation in the world when it was completed.
💬 One key quote: “Air Force installations can lease non excess, underused land to private sector developers in return for rent or in kind consideration,” said Jeffrey Domm of the Air Force’s civil engineer center.

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1️⃣ The big picture: On roughly 4,600 acres of Kern County desert in California, a massive solar and battery storage facility now generates 875 megawatts of clean power using land partly leased from an Air Force base. The site holds 1.9 million solar panels alongside 120,720 batteries capable of storing 3,287 megawatt hours of energy, making it the largest combined solar and storage project in the world. Built between 2021 and 2024 at a cost of about 1.7 billion dollars, it supplies power to two major utilities, the city of San Jose, a community power agency, and even Starbucks. The project sits next to the famous Rogers Dry Lake, a National Historic Landmark where test pilots once broke the sound barrier and the space shuttle landed more than 50 times. That same flat, dry, and structurally solid terrain that made it ideal for aviation history now makes it ideal for large scale solar energy.

2️⃣ Why is this good news: Pairing 875 megawatts of solar capacity with over 3,200 megawatt hours of battery storage means clean energy can reach California homes during peak evening demand, not just during sunny midday hours. This kind of solar plus storage combination is exactly what grid operators need to rely on renewables the way they rely on fossil fuel plants. The project also set a new record as the largest public private partnership the US Department of Defense has ever completed, showing that underused military land can play a meaningful role in the clean energy transition. At peak construction, a thousand union workers built it, demonstrating that large renewable projects can generate good jobs at scale. Buyers ranging from major utilities to a global coffee chain are now powered by this desert facility, proving that corporate clean energy demand can help finance and sustain projects of this size.

3️⃣ What’s next: The facility is now fully operational and supplying power to its buyers under long term contracts. The 35 year lease with the Air Force runs well into the future, giving the project a stable foundation for decades of clean energy generation. Advances in battery technology and further public private land partnerships could open up more underused federal land for similar projects across the US.

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Read the full story here: Ecoportal – A dry lakebed in the Mojave is hard enough to land a jet on, and the 1.9 million solar panels spread beside it stand on the same flat ground where pilots first flew faster than sound

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