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Last Updated on: 10th February 2025, 12:01 pm
Near some of the most beautiful spots in the world, the San Rafael Swell and Arches National Park (as shown in the two photos in the figure below) Moab, the Green River and the Colorado River, there is a massive new green energy project, the Green River Energy Center, which is nearly ready to go online.
The project is located close to the massive Hunter 1577-megawatt coal-fired power plant in Castle Dale, Utah, shown in the photo below.
The Apple Maps image below shows the location of the solar farm that is part of the Green River Energy Center just south of the Hunter plant.
The photo below shows a closer view of part of the solar farm.
The lead photo and the one below also show the massive energy storage facility under construction that is the other main feature of the project.
At the end of this article, you can find a summary of the major electrical power production facilities in Utah. While Utah has bountiful solar resources (many sunny days/year), it also has bountiful coal resources. However, until just recently, the major investments have been in fossil gas power production.
However, just recently there has been a boom in solar power production. What’s driving it? In Utah County west of Provo, on the other side of Utah lake on the outskirts of the town of Eagle Mountain, is Meta’s (Facebook’s) huge data processing center. See photos of it in the next two figures below. Meta has guaranteed totally powering its data centers with renewable energy. If Eagle Mountain uses power at the rate of Meta’s biggest data center, it uses 1,375,321 MWh per year. If it uses that power every hour during the year, it uses it at a rate of 157 megawatts. Specifically Meta-supported projects are currently adding 1719 megawatts of renewable energy in Utah. Much of this is solar, so it needs to have significant battery storage to provide 24 hours per day of supply. Together with other green energy investments, renewable energy production in Utah is approaching 50%.
Solar power is set to increase dramatically in Utah with the construction of a 400-megawatt solar plant as part of the Green River Energy Center in east central Utah. The solar plant construction is nearing completion. Also, part of the facility will be a 1600 MWh battery facility at the site, which you can also see nearing completion in the lead photo and the 6th photo above. This will make it one of the largest solar plus storage facilities in the country. If the batteries were empty, and you could use the full 400-megawatt capacity of the solar farm, they could be filled in 4 hours.
To power the Meta Eagle Mountain data center would require roughly 150 megawatts for 24 hours per day. If the battery system were full, it could provide power at this rate for 10.6 hours, which would cover the night, at least during the summer. With the excess power of the 400-megawatt solar plant used to charge the batteries over the middle of the day, this solar farm and battery system could provide all of the power needed for the data center 24 hours per. day in the summer. The Green River Energy Center is being constructed near Hunter, which is Utah’s largest coal-powered electrical generating facility. See a photo of the Hunter power plant in the third image above. The fourth figure is an Apple Maps image showing the relationship between the Hunter power plant and the Green River Energy Center solar farm. This will give the new energy center access to the transmission lines necessary to make it successful. The facility is planned to come online this year (2025). Since this project is nearly complete, it will most likely go on to completion.
However, any new projects in the pipeline that have government subsidies are most likely dead in the water. The new Trump administration is moving quickly to kill such projects. Trump is blocking money even for projects with signed contracts. The financial balance for clean wind and solar is excellent now. These sources of energy are cheaper than any alternative. However, there will be little green energy progress in at least the next 4 years with no support for permitting and no more Biden Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act money. Assuming Trump relinquishes the White House in 4 years (after January 6, 2021, that is not a given) and if a J. D. Vance type Republican succeeds Trump, the anti-green energy environment will continue.
Utah Green Energy (Wikipedia 2022)
Solar Power
673 megawatts (MW): Faraday Solar Project near Fairfield Utah (under construction)
400 MW: Green River Energy Center near Castle Dale
315 MW: Escalante Solar Project near Milford
210 MW: Three Cedars Solar Project Cedar City
150 MW: Pavant Solar Farm near Filmore
107 MW: Graphite Solar near Wellington/Price (For Meta’s Eagle Mountain Data Center)
80 MW: Clover Creek Solar Farm near Mona
80 MW: Enterprise
Total: 2015 MW
Wind Power
300 MW: 165 turbines Milford Wind
61 MW: 27 turbines Latigo Wind Park near Monticello
19 MW: 9 turbines near Spanish Fork
3.3 MW: 2 turbines Army Depot near Tooele
Total: 383 MW
Water (14 sites, mostly 1 to 12 MW)
152 MW: Flaming Gorge Dam
30 MW: Cutler Hydroelectric Power Plan Cache Valley
11.5 MW: Olmsted Power Station Orem Utah
Total: 1428 MW
Geothermal
34 MW: Blundell Geothermal Facility (Beaver County)
25 MW: Cove Fort Geothermal Power Plant (Beaver County)
14 MW: Thermo No. 1 Geothermal Project (Beaver County)
Total: 73 MW
Green Energy Grand Total: 3899 MW
Coal: 4591 MW (All to shut down by 2032)
Fossil Gas: 3470 MW
Fossil Fuels Total: 8061 MW
Renewables 48%
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