History breaks ground with Ford, DTE Energy project underway

Ford’s 650 MW power purchase agreement remains the largest renewable energy purchase from a utility in the country to date.

April 23, 2025 Rachel Metea

Michigan's Lapeer Solar Park

Image: DTE Energy

Ford’s 650 MW power purchase agreement (PPA) with DTE Energy, broke ground in Michigan with the procurement’s first project start of construction in Branch County, Mich.

The 100 MW Cold Creek Solar Park is the first of several DTE solar projects that Ford will procure from. This procurement will help the automaker reach its goal to achieve carbon neutrality across its vehicles, manufacturing and supply chain no later than 2050, and to use 100% carbon-free electricity in its global manufacturing facilities by 2035.

The project is made with Shine modules, Siemens inverters and Array trackers, DTE Energy told pv magazine USA. DTE said it expects the project to be complete in 2026.

Ford’s 650 MW purchase, announced in 2022, remains the largest renewable energy purchase ever made in the United States from a utility to date, according to BloombergNEF. That year also saw the second largest PPA from a utility, also through DTE’s renewable energy customer program and from an automaker, Stellantis, the maker of Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat and Jeep vehicles. Stellantis is procuring energy from the Lapeer Solar Park in Michigan, seen in photo above.

When DTE announced the deal, Michigan received just 0.64% of its electricity from solar, with 927 MW capacity installed, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. DTE Energy said at the time that once complete, the projects would increase Michigan’s solar energy by 70%. Michigan’s installed capacity has since grown to 1.88 GW of solar as of the end of 2024, and the SEIA projects a growth of 4.79 GW over the next five years.

Ford purchased the clean energy through DTE Energy’s MIGreenPower program, a program for DTE’s customers, including homeowners, renters, businesses and commercial property owners, and large and industrial-sized businesses, to select a portion of their electric bill, adjustable in 5% increments, to be sourced from renewable energy. This business model is utility-owned and differs from community solar, an arrangement under which a third-party develops and sells electricity to the utility, and customers sign on for a portion of the solar facility generated by the third-party site.

The popularity of the program caused a boom in solar PV and wind energy for the state. In March 2022, the program’s 50,000 customers and businesses were enrolled in 1.8 million MWh of renewable energy. Within five months, the program had grown to 62,000 residential customers and 600 businesses enrolled in 2.8 million MWh per year. By the end of the year, the program had 75,000 residential customers and 800 businesses enrolled in 4 million MWh on an annual basis. More than 100,000 residential and 1,900 businesses were enrolled in the program through 2023, according to DTE Energy.

As the largest renewable energy producer and investor in Michigan, DTE Energy serves 2.3 million electricity customers in Southeast Michigan and operates a natural gas company that serves 1.3 million customers across Michigan. The utility as 20 wind projects (1.95 GW), 34 solar projects (474 MW), two landfill projects (6.4 MW) and one biomass project (17 MW) that it either owns or are third-party owned projects. DTE said it has invested $4.6 billion in its renewable energy infrastructure since 2009 and aims to invest an additional $4 billion in renewable energy over the next several years.

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