Between 2005 and 2020, Navajo County saw four wind and solar project proposals. Since 2021 it has seen 16, several of them many times the size of anything that came before. The high desert of Navajo County has become some of the region’s most sought-after land for renewable energy development and the 20 projects now claiming a piece of it describe about 12,000 megawatts of generating capacity, more than 11 times what the Cholla Power Plant produced at its peak.
Two of the 20 are running. Three are under construction, seven have county approval but have not broken ground as far as the county’s files show, seven are still working through county review, and one has been announced by its developer without any paperwork reaching the county.
Those figures come from a reading of the county’s special use permit, development agreement and resolution files for each project, current through publication, along with the Arizona Corporation Commission’s power line dockets. Taken together, the filings name about 393,000 acres, roughly 6% of the county, however that number might be smaller because some of the parcels named will only be partly occupied by the developments. Fourteen of the 20 projects would pair their panels or turbines with batteries, about 9,200 megawatts of storage in all.
The projects cluster around Joseph City, Holbrook and Snowflake for a practical reason. The high-voltage lines built to carry Cholla’s power are still standing and many of the applications describe tying into the Arizona Public Service substation beside the retired plant or into capacity freed up by its closure. The land is also flat, dry and much of it is held in large pieces by a few owners, among them Aztec Land & Cattle and the Arizona State Land Department, making it logistically easier for developers. Navajo County also fits much of the criteria to maximize tax credits for these projects.
The pace is new. Four of the 20 projects appeared before 2021: Dry Lake Wind in 2005, its second phase in 2009, Chevelon Butte Wind in 2018 and Hashknife in 2019. The other 16 have arrived since, five of them in 2024 alone.
Nearly all of the land involved is private or state trust land, where state law limits what a county can refuse. A developer can apply for a special use permit, which goes to the Planning and Zoning Commission for a public hearing before the Board of Supervisors votes, or negotiate a development agreement directly with the county, which skips the commission and goes straight to a board vote. Eleven of the projects have gone or are going through the permit process and eight are using development agreements, all of them filed since 2021.
The county’s two operating projects are both wind farms. Dry Lake Wind, developed by PPM Energy and later Iberdrola, now Avangrid, was approved in January 2006 on the Pink Cliffs northwest of Snowflake and is likely the first wind farm built in Arizona. It was permitted for 99 megawatts and built as 30 turbines producing about 63 megawatts. West Camp Wind Farm, AES’s 112-turbine, 500-megawatt project about 10 miles south of Joseph City, was approved in September 2022, took about two years to build and began commercial operation April 10 of this year.
Three solar projects are under construction, all between Joseph City and Holbrook. Invenergy’s Hashknife Energy Center, 3 to 5 miles south of Joseph City, is now permitted for up to 1,000 megawatts on 5,840 acres. Its first phase, 275 megawatts with 1,100 megawatt-hours of batteries for Arizona Public Service, has been under construction since November 2024 and a 200-megawatt second phase is due by mid-2027. Avangrid’s Obed Meadow Solar, about a mile south of Joseph City, was approved in 2022 for 200 megawatts of solar and 200 megawatts of storage; limited foundation work took place between November 2025 and February 2026 and the files do not give a date for full construction. The Snowflake Solar Energy Center, by Clenera, sits about 6 miles north of Holbrook despite its name. It is permitted for 1,000 megawatts and its first 475 megawatts, with batteries, are being built for APS under a 20-year contract, with first-phase completion scheduled for 2027.
Seven more projects have county approval but, as far as the county’s files show, have not been built. Three of them are wind. Dry Lake Wind Phase II, Iberdrola’s 65-megawatt, 43-turbine addition about 7 miles north of Snowflake, was approved on a 4-1 vote in June 2010. Chevelon Butte Wind, south of Winslow along Chevelon Canyon, is the Navajo County corner of AES’s 477-megawatt farm that lies mostly in Coconino County. The county approved up to eight turbines here in December 2019, later cut to four in the company’s plans. West Camp 2, also by AES, would put up to 144 turbines and a 500-megawatt battery about 5 miles southwest of Holbrook, next to the first West Camp project; the county signed a development agreement with the company in April that includes a $3.95 million community benefit payment and construction is planned to begin in January 2027.
The other four are solar. Cygnus Solar and Storage, by SB Energy, is planned about 10 miles north of Snowflake and was chosen by Salt River Project to supply power from 2028. Its development agreement, effective Jan. 13, carries a $6 million community benefit payment and a construction schedule beginning in late 2026. Longroad Energy’s Lark Point Solar, 450 megawatts with an 1,800-megawatt-hour battery on 7,119 acres of Aztec Land & Cattle Company land south of Joseph City, was approved 4-0 in October 2024. Red Hills Solar and Storage, by Stellar, was approved 5-0 in November 2024 for 1,000 megawatts and 4,000 megawatt-hours of batteries on about 9,200 acres just north of Snowflake, with construction projected for mid-2026 and operation at the end of 2028. Rocking Chair Solar, by Enfinity Global, was approved 5-0 in February 2024 for 1,100 megawatts in three phases on 7,485 acres about 17 miles west-northwest of Snowflake, with its first phase due online in late 2028.
Seven projects are still in review. The largest on paper is Sun Mesa – Cholla Solar, by GoSolar Energy and Gigawatt Land, which describes 1,500 megawatts on Marcou Mesa between Holbrook and Joseph City. Its narrative had construction beginning by July of this year, but county staff found its development agreement application incomplete in May. Gordon Baier, who is behind the project originally told The Tribune there would be shovels in the ground by this past July. Applications submitted for the project now say December 2026 but Baier said that that date is also a bit optimistic. Clearway Energy’s Chimney Canyon Solar, southwest of Joseph City, has grown to about 975 megawatts on roughly 18,000 acres, holds a state permit for its power line and plans to build its first phase in 2027. SB Energy has two pending filings beyond Cygnus: Leo, 500 megawatts with 2,000 megawatt-hours of batteries about 15 miles north of Holbrook beside the Navajo Nation, aimed at 2030 and Pegasus Solar, 500 megawatts between Snowflake and Holbrook on State Route 377, which has a state power line hearing set for Nov. 9-12. RAI Energy’s NZ Lobos Energy Farm, 500 megawatts on 3,460 acres along Silver Creek about 8 miles north of Snowflake, submitted its development agreement package in September 2025 and held open houses in November, where most of the comment cards opposed it.
BluEarth Renewables’ Papermill Wind, the only pending wind project, would place 85 turbines totaling 340 megawatts between Heber-Overgaard and Snowflake, beside the Dry Lake farm; a draft agreement from 2025 remains unsigned and construction is not planned until 2028.
The smallest project in the county’s files is Red Sands Solar, Atlas Global Development’s 60-megawatt project with a 40-megawatt battery on 392 acres south of Winslow next to the state prison, which applied in January and plans to build in 2027. This project is supposed to provide behind the meter energy for Atlas Global’s trade port at the Winslow-Lindbergh Airport, although the developer still touts to investors that there is potential for 2,000 megawatts of on-site generation.
One more exists only on its developer’s website. Invenergy’s Honeymoon Trail Energy Center, 600 megawatts with 3,600 megawatt-hours of storage on about 15,000 acres north and northeast of Joseph City, has not been filed with the county and part of its footprint overlaps the Sun Mesa proposal.
The sizes are the capacities each project claims in its own paperwork and several have changed between filings. Hashknife started at 300 to 400 megawatts and is now permitted at 1,000, Chimney Canyon grew from 750 to 975, Pegasus doubled from 250 to 500 and Sun Mesa’s figures range from 1,500 megawatts to 10,000 megawatts depending on the document. Schedules move as well: Obed Meadow’s original target was commercial operation by the end of 2024 and several of the approved projects have passed their own projected construction dates without starting.
The Tribune is soon launching its new website and will include a page that will track each of these developments and any new ones that appear in the county. Subscribers will be able to see maps and track progress and stay up to date all in one place. This will be the 117-year-old newspaper’s first bit of truly subscriber-only content because of the scale and the upkeep of the system.
