Bloomberg has agreed to buy 80 MW of power from Ørsted's Mockingbird Solar Center in Texas for 15 years. It is the third corporate buyer for the project and not the last. Add up every Mockingbird contract in Leap and the total comes to more than the plant can produce.
Key takeaways
- Ørsted announced on 18 January 2024 a 15-year PPA with Bloomberg for 80 MW of capacity from the 471 MW Mockingbird Solar Center in Texas.
- The Bloomberg PPA supports Bloomberg's commitment to source 100 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2025.
- Mockingbird is Ørsted's largest solar project in the US and was under construction in Texas when the Bloomberg PPA was signed.
- Before Bloomberg, Ørsted had sold 170 MW of Mockingbird's output to Royal DSM under a 10-year PPA signed in August 2021 and 90 MW to Covestro under a 15-year contract signed in June 2023.
- In March 2024, two months after the Bloomberg deal, Ørsted signed a 15-year PPA with UnitedHealth Group for 250 MW from Mockingbird, according to Enerdatics' records.
Who buys Mockingbird's power, and on what terms?
Four corporate buyers, signed over two and a half years, on contracts that do not all look alike.
The first was Royal DSM in August 2021, taking 170 MW on a 10-year term. Covestro followed in June 2023 with 90 MW over 15 years, recorded in Leap as a virtual PPA. A virtual PPA is a financial contract in which the buyer does not take physical delivery of the power. Instead, the two sides settle the difference between an agreed price and the market price, and the buyer receives the renewable attributes.
Bloomberg came third, in January 2024, with 80 MW over 15 years. Leap does not record whether its contract is physical or virtual. UnitedHealth Group came fourth, in March 2024, with 250 MW over 15 years.
Three of the four contracts share a 15-year term. The odd one out is DSM's, the earliest and the shortest. A 10-year contract signed in 2021 will expire well before the three later agreements, which means part of Mockingbird's output will need a new buyer, or will sell into the market, years before the rest.
How much of Mockingbird had been sold when Bloomberg signed?
About 72 percent. With DSM's 170 MW, Covestro's 90 MW and Bloomberg's 80 MW, contracts covered 340 MW of the 471 MW plant. That left roughly 131 MW uncontracted.
Splitting a large plant between several buyers is common practice for corporate solar. Few companies want 471 MW on their own. Each buyer takes a slice sized to its own consumption or climate target, and the developer stitches the slices together until the plant is mostly sold. The remainder can be held back for a later buyer or left to earn market prices.
Bloomberg's slice fits that pattern neatly. At 80 MW it is the smallest of the four, sized for a buyer whose aim is to match its electricity use with renewable supply.
Why does the arithmetic stop closing in March 2024?
Because the fourth contract is larger than the capacity that was left. UnitedHealth Group's 250 MW, signed two months after Bloomberg's, is nearly twice the roughly 131 MW that remained unsold.
Taken at face value, the four contracts in Leap total 590 MW, against a plant of 471 MW. That is about 119 MW, or roughly a quarter of nameplate capacity, more than Mockingbird can generate at full output.
Leap's records do not explain the gap. They do not show whether an earlier contract was resized, whether volumes are stated on different bases, or whether the later contract draws on more than one source. The overlap is unresolved, and it is a reminder that headline volumes in corporate PPA announcements are not always additive. A reader trying to work out how much of a plant is still available cannot simply subtract each new contract from nameplate.
What the records do show is demand. Within about nine months, from Covestro in June 2023 to UnitedHealth Group in March 2024, three large companies signed long-term contracts on the same Texas project.
What else did Mockingbird bring to the table?
A land conservation story alongside the power. Ørsted has partnered with The Nature Conservancy to preserve nearly 1,000 acres of rare, native tallgrass prairie next to the project. The project also incorporates conservation efforts on its own site.
For a corporate buyer, these features matter. Companies buying renewable power to meet public climate targets increasingly look for projects with a story beyond megawatt hours. A plant that protects rare habitat, created 500 jobs at peak construction and is estimated to inject $215 million into the local economy over its lifespan is easier to present to stakeholders than an anonymous solar farm.
Enerdatics records 75 solar PPAs in the ERCOT market announced across 2023 and 2024. None discloses a tariff. Twenty-five disclose a term, with a median of 15 years, and 10 of those are exactly 15 years. Bloomberg's contract sits precisely at the market's centre. ERCOT is the grid operator covering most of Texas.
What does the deal signal for Texas corporate solar?
It signals that 15 years has become the default length for corporate solar contracts in ERCOT, and that buyers will share a project rather than wait for one of their own. Mockingbird's three later contracts all run for 15 years, matching the median of every ERCOT solar PPA with a disclosed term in 2023 and 2024.
It also signals a pricing blind spot. Across 75 ERCOT solar PPAs, not one tariff is disclosed in Leap. Buyers, sellers and investors comparing deals in Texas have term and volume to go on, and little else.
Contracted projects like Mockingbird have since become attractive to infrastructure investors. Stakes in Texas solar projects backed by long-term corporate contracts are now changing hands at valuations that reflect those contracts. Location matters too: the vast majority of Texas solar sits inside ERCOT, which is where Mockingbird's buyers are signing. The open question for Mockingbird is the one its own contracts raise: how many megawatts it has really sold.
Frequently asked questions
How much power is Bloomberg buying from Mockingbird? Bloomberg is buying 80 MW of capacity under a 15-year PPA with Ørsted, announced on 18 January 2024.
Who else buys power from the Mockingbird Solar Center? Leap records PPAs with Royal DSM for 170 MW over 10 years, Covestro for 90 MW over 15 years and UnitedHealth Group for 250 MW over 15 years.
How large is the Mockingbird Solar Center? Mockingbird has a capacity of 471 MW and is Ørsted's largest solar project in the US.
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