Power company AES Corporation has completed construction of the 1,000MW Bellefield 1 project in Kern County, California. The overall project includes 500MW of solar and 500MW/2,000MWh of battery storage.
Bellefield 1 is part of Bellefield, a two-phase project, each consisting of 500MW of solar and a 500MW four-hour battery energy storage system (BESS).
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Once Bellefield is completed, the 2,000MW project – 1,000MW solar and 1,000MW/4,000MWh BESS – is expected to be the largest solar-plus-storage facility in the US.
The project has a 15-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Amazon.
The Bellefield project was acquired by AES from project developer Avantus in 2023.
AES says that more than 700 union jobs were created during the construction of Bellefield 1 and that approximately 1,000 union jobs are expected to be created at the peak of construction of Bellefield 2.
The company also expects significant earnings from placing Bellefield 1 in service in the second half of 2025. Construction on Bellefield 2 is scheduled to be completed in 2026.
To assist in construction, AES used Maximo, its ‘AI-enabled robotic system’, which the company says improved the safety, speed and accuracy of solar module installation.
Maximo is a robotic arm that performs solar panel installation, in what AES claims is half the time and cost.
As recently reported by Energy-Storage.news, AES’ financial results revealed that the company is contracting with US or South Korean suppliers for approximately 80% of its 2026 and 2027 battery needs.
Additionally, the company disclosed that it has imported all the batteries required for its upcoming projects this year.
From this information, it seems that AES is well-positioned to bring online Bellefield 1 and complete the construction of Bellefield 2 as scheduled.
Once the project is fully operational, it will overtake the Edwards & Sanborn project, also in California, as the the largest solar-plus-storage project in the US.
Andrés Gluski, president and CEO of AES said of Bellefield 1: “Completing the first 1,000 MW of Bellefield demonstrates how rapidly solar and storage can be deployed to meet the growing energy demand of data centres.”
