Running a state’s economic development office — or the state itself — affords those officeholders valuable opportunities to hear what’s on the minds of company executives looking to invest capital in new facilities. As former Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen’s second term was winding down in 2011, he and his then Commissioner of Economic and Community Development, Matt Kisber, and his Commissioner of Revenue, Reagan Farr, saw an opportunity to deliver what the executives were looking for in their need for a robust supply of renewable energy.
Enter Nashville-based Silicon Ranch, the solar energy company that builds, owns and operates utility-scale solar energy infrastructure. The market didn’t need another power provider coming between utilities and their customers, they reasoned.
“From the very beginning, there were certain principles we adhered to in designing the company,” says Silicon Ranch Chairman Matt Kisber. “One was being a partner to utilities and large energy users. We wanted to be a force for economic development because we all came from backgrounds that cared about community and economic development. We saw there was an opportunity to partner with utilities to deliver what their customers wanted. And we believed it was important to own the land that our solar farms would be built on.”
Energy Users’ Trusted Partner
Today Silicon Ranch operates more than 180 solar farms in 15 states and one in Canada on a combined roughly 50,000 acres. Its portfolio of projects account for more than seven gigawatts of energy between its operating projects, contracted projects and projects under construction.
“We are a large investor in Tennessee where we have approximately $2 billion of investment, and in Georgia we have over $4 billion of investment,” says Kisber. “The rest is spread across the other locations. We have become the trusted partner to a number of large energy users, such as data centers. We work with them and their utility partners, including electric cooperatives, to deliver renewable energy as they need.”
Kisber says Silicon Ranch generates more solar energy for electric cooperatives around the country than any other independent power producer. One example is Georgia-based Green Power EMC, which supplies Silicon Ranch-generated solar power to Meta’s operations in the state. “Its solar energy also serves leading tech companies including Amazon, Google and Microsoft.”
Why Own the Land?
“We saw that solar projects would be important tax sources for a lot of communities, many of which had not seen large projects,” Kisber explains. “Our coming in with these kinds of investments and tax revenues gave them resources they didn’t expect to have. Couple that with no demand on public services, and it really is accretive to their budgets.”
Tax revenues paid by Silicon Ranch on a project in Terrell County, Georgia, for example, made it possible for local leaders to consider a $2,000 raise for every public school teacher in the county with leftover funds for the education department and additional funds for the county’s general budget.
Matt Kisber
Already adept at recruiting companies to Tennessee, the Silicon Ranch team used those skills to bring suppliers of its solar farm components to the Southeast. These include solar panel manufacturer First Solar, which in September 2024 inaugurated a $1.1 billion manufacturing plant in Lawrence County, Alabama, forecast to create about 800 jobs.
Silicon Ranch was a launch partner for solar panel recycler SOLARCYCLE, which is investing $344 million in a new recycling facility in Cedartown, Georgia, that’s set to create more than 600 jobs.
“We also work with Hyosung HICO in Memphis, and they just announced an expansion,” notes Kisber. The company is investing $51 million in its transformer manufacturing facility in Shelby County. “About 20% of their production in 2024 went to Silicon Ranch projects. When we talk about having an impact on domestic manufacturing and helping to shape an industry, we’ve tried to be at the forefront of that.”
Counting Sheep
Silicon Ranch is at the forefront of another aspect of the solar farm industry — using regenerative land management practices, including livestock, to improve the land its projects occupy. The grass has to be cut, after all.
Kisber explains: “This means planting native vegetation and using animals to graze, which improves the soil quality so that over time the soil becomes a carbon sink. We can use the land not only for solar but for agriculture, and improve the quality of that land over time.” Silicon Ranch worked first with owners of flocks of sheep.
“We realized we needed to be able to do this at scale and have our own flock of sheep, so we bought a flock of about 400 and built a breeding operation in Houston County, Georgia,” says Kisber. “We are now up to about 4,500 sheep.”
Today, adds Kisber, Silicon Ranch employs agrivoltaic specialists it trains to do minor maintenance on the solar farms and take care of the sheep. The company is expanding its livestock business to include cattle for land management purposes. “It’s great to talk to these people because they love to have a technology-related occupation that also allows them to be with the animals and to be outdoors doing something they love.”
This Investment Profile was prepared under the auspices of Silicon Ranch. For more information visit www.siliconranch.com.
