rPlus Energies announced on July 21 that it has crossed the 1-gigawatt threshold for developed solar and storage capacity in Idaho, marking the milestone with two projects on the same day: commissioning of the 125 MWac Pleasant Valley Solar 2 in Elmore County and groundbreaking on the 400 MWac Blacks Creek Energy Center in Ada County.
Twin Projects, $750M Investment
The two projects together represent more than $750 million of investment and will create hundreds of construction jobs and permanent site roles. Pleasant Valley Solar 2 follows a first phase already delivering renewable power to Idaho Power under long-term contract, part of a state grid that Meta has cited as a key reason for locating a Treasure Valley data center in 2022.
Backed By Sandbrook, Serving Data Centers
rPlus, backed by Sandbrook Capital and the Gardner Group, has more than 30 projects across 15 U.S. market areas spanning solar, wind, pumped storage hydro and battery. The Idaho milestone lands as U.S. utilities scramble to underwrite dispatchable renewable-plus-storage capacity for the AI-fuelled load growth that has also underpinned SoftBank's 5 GW French AI data-center campus.
Idaho Becomes A Solar-Data-Center Corridor
Corporate offtakers — particularly hyperscale data-center operators — are now anchoring pipeline decisions from Idaho to Utah, where rPlus commissioned the state's first utility-scale solar project a decade ago. The Blacks Creek project will be one of the largest solar assets under construction in the U.S. Northwest and complements adjacent renewable-plus-storage development the region needs to keep pace with load growth from projects like Wistron's Fort Worth AI server factory.
Reporting based on coverage from GlobeNewswire, Solar Power World and rPlus Energies.