Additions coming to Highland Solar
The Times Gazette, 11/12/25
Additions to the Highland Solar Project were announced at the weekly Wednesday morning meeting of the Highland County Board of Commissioners.
Representatives from DESRI, Highland Solar’s project owner, were in attendance to discuss those new additions.
Joel Puritz, manager of project development at DESRI, said the project, which is located about 15 miles southwest of Hillsboro just outside of Buford, will be adding a battery storage area as well as an additional 2,000 acres of coverage area. He also said the company is “in the very early stages of development” for both additions, saying they were about 18 months to two years away from beginning construction.
Puritz said the battery storage project will be sited on a 55-acre parcel, with a 30-acre construction area, off Gath Road, sized at 300 MW/1,200 MWh. He said it will be designed to discharge power for four hours at a time and use a Lithium Iron Phosphate (LPF) Battery Energy Storage System (BESS).
He said construction would start “no later than” Q3 2027, possibly in the spring or summer, also saying the company intends to bring it online in late 2028. He then said it would connect at the same place, 345 kV Stewart-Clinton Transmission Line, as Highland Solar # AC1-085, which is the original project.
Puritz said the company is currently in the process of amending its application and will be submitting the battery storage project to the Ohio Power Siting Board this month.
He also said each battery container would be about the size of a shipping container and have electrical equipment in the middle of the facility. He then said the batteries do degrade over time, but they don’t degrade to the point that they aren’t “useful anymore.” He said, because of that, everything the company installs stays in place over the life of the project and they “just add more on after the fact.”
Maria Smith-Lopez, a development associate with DESRI, said the second addition is added to the Highland Solar Project, titled Nuthatch Solar.
She said this aspect is an addition of 230 MW to the original 300 MW project. She then said the company is currently looking at Q3 2027 for the start of construction and a Commercial Operations Date of Q3 2028, saying it is “not quite as far along” as the battery storage project.
Smith-Lopez said the addition will be connected to the same infrastructure as the other two aspects of Highland Solar and will have an approximate footprint of 2,000 acres. She also said the added land will all be adjacent to the operating Highland Solar Project. She then said DESRI will be starting with the public information meetings in January 2026.
