Weld County Land, Larimer County Lights: Solar Sprawl Hits 1,400 Acres

Funny how the folks hyperventilating over “urban sprawl” couldn’t care less about “solar sprawl.” Selective outrage, anyone? The Black Hollow Sun solar farm northeast of Severance and northwest of Greeley is officially online, sprawling across 1,400 acres of Weld County land. Developed by the European firm ContourGlobal, the project is supplying renewable energy to customers in Estes Park, Fort Collins, Longmont, and Loveland—not Weld, where it sits.

Platte River Power Authority touts it as the largest solar energy project in northern Colorado, with Phase I now powering tens of thousands of homes and Phase II set to grow that to about 70,000 by 2026.

The Bullet Point Brief

• Biggest in the region. At 1,400 acres, Black Hollow Sun is the largest solar project in northern Colorado.
• Power for… somewhere else. Weld County land, Larimer County lights. The juice flows to PRPA customers in Estes Park, Fort Collins, Longmont, and Loveland.
• Foreign developer. Built by ContourGlobal, a European company, this is its first U.S. renewable energy venture.
• Phased rollout. Phase I is live now, Phase II wraps in 2026, eventually powering 70,000 homes and businesses.
• Local flavor. Severance Mayor Matt Fries joked the number of workers made the site look like its own city. Residents are watching their quirky farm town turn into a solar hub.

My Bottom Line

A couple of sections here, a couple of sections there, and sooner or later you gobble up a lot of land. Weld County just waved goodbye to another 1,400 acres, now smothered in glass and steel to keep the lights on in Larimer County. If this stuff is so desirable, why don’t Fort Collins and Longmont plaster their own backyards with panels instead of offloading it on Weld?

This isn’t “local renewable energy.” It’s land transfer dressed up as green virtue. Weld loses agriculture, character, and open space so Boulderites can brag about their “clean energy” footprint while they sip kombucha under LED grow lights. And don’t miss the kicker: the developer isn’t local, it’s a European corporation. So Weld land gets paneled over, Larimer homes get powered, and profits get shipped overseas.

Call me old-fashioned, but if renewable energy is such a slam-dunk, build it where the demand is. Otherwise, it looks a lot less like saving the planet and a lot more like exploiting Weld County’s dirt because it’s cheaper and less politically noisy than paving over Fort Collins open space.

This is the slow creep – project by project – where Weld becomes Colorado’s energy colony. Oil, gas, wind, solar. We bear the costs, outsiders take the credit. Time to slam the brakes and ask: who actually benefits here, and why isn’t Weld first in line for the profit produced on Weld land?