{"id":456712,"date":"2026-02-08T17:11:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T17:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/456712\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T17:11:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T17:11:09","slug":"breaking-news-the-400-megawatt-handshake-is-nextera-building-the-gas-station-for-hillsboros-secret-300-acre-user","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/456712\/","title":{"rendered":"BREAKING NEWS: The 400-Megawatt Handshake: Is NextEra Building the Gas Station for Hillsboro\u2019s Secret 300-Acre User?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Real Story \u2013 A Column<\/p>\n

I am totally immersed in every land sale, every movement of equipment, and every whisper in North Hillsboro\u2019s massive industrial buildout.\u00a0 All of that in a City where information is locked down, public notices barely exist, and NDAs and secrecy rule the day. The highest stakes and biggest piles of money in the State are playing out in Hillsboro, Oregon, as Data Centers, Energy deals, and land speculators fight it out. A social media post last Friday just intersected with all of the other information that has been coming in.\u00a0 The puzzle is coming together.<\/p>\n

While the public was told that the \u201cGrand Bargain\u201d of 2014 was a 50-year promise, the City of Hillsboro has quietly spent between $150 and $170 Million in taxpayer-backed TIF (Tax Increment Financing) funds to amass a 300-acre industrial superpower site along NW Meek Road. But land is nothing without power\u2014and the Hillsboro Herald has uncovered a major missing piece of the puzzle; we think.<\/p>\n

Enter \u201cBig Meeks.\u201d<\/a> Proposed by NextEra Energy Resources, the \u201cBig Meeks Energy Storage\u201d<\/a> project is a behemoth lithium-ion battery facility, a BESS rated at 400 Megawatts. It is being promoted as a massive $500 million dollar battery energy storage facility proposed by NextEra Energy Resources<\/a>.<\/p>\n

400 MegaWatts, is that a lot of power?<\/p>\n

To understand that number, you have to look at Intel. Intel\u2019s entire Ronler Acres campus draws roughly 400-600 MW. NextEra isn\u2019t proposing a \u201cneighborhood battery\u201d; they are proposing a specialized energy hub that could power a second Intel-sized empire.<\/p>\n

\"BigHere is an aerial photo of the approximate proposed Big Meeks site on NW Meek Road, directly across High 26 from the Rice Museum. This is an approximate land area with a generated image showing BESS Lithium-Ion batteries, each about the size of a semi-truck. This is about how many Batteries would be needed to produce 400 megawatts. Hillsboro Herald Image\u2013 not supplied by the developer or any official body- approximation onlyThe Speculation: Semiconductor Fab or AI Factory? <\/p>\n

The location of Big Meeks inside the Industrial UGB\u2014directly adjacent to the City\u2019s 300-acre land assembly and flanked by another 180 acres, making an almost 500-acre development ready tech site\u2014suggests two likely scenarios:<\/p>\n

The Semiconductor \u201cWhale\u201d: A 400 MW battery is the \u201cinsurance policy\u201d required by a high-end semiconductor manufacturer (an IDM) to prevent \u201cwafer loss\u201d during grid fluctuations. Needed where the grid is almost maxed out, which ours now is. Or\u2026The AI \u201cFactory\u201d: NextEra\u2019s 2026 corporate strategy explicitly targets \u201cAI Data Center Hubs.\u201d These facilities require massive, instantaneous power draws that would crash a standard grid. Big Meeks acts as the \u201cbuffer,\u201d allowing a massive AI campus to sit on the City\u2019s 300 acres without turning off the lights in the rest of Hillsboro.<\/p>\n

The \u201cSqueeze\u201d: As the City pays massive interest on the $150M+ debt for the land it bought, Senator Janeen Sollman is pushing SB 1586 to ensure that once this 300-acre block is \u201cfilled,\u201d the 1,700-acre rural reserve to the west is legally unlocked for the next wave.<\/p>\n

The \u201cBig Meeks\u201d battery may be the bridge between the land Hillsboro already bought and the farmland they are about to try to take.\u00a0 \u00a0And guess what?\u00a0 Public records we searched indicate that NextEra is owned and controlled partly by- you guessed it- BlackRock and their private equity pals! (sources linked at the bottom)<\/p>\n

NextEraResources-<\/p>\n

ShareholderOwnership %Approx. SharesNoteThe Vanguard Group10.37%~216 MillionThe single largest shareholder is also a top owner of PGE.BlackRock, Inc.8.21%~170 MillionThe primary driver of ESG\/Data Center capital worldwide.State Street Corp.5.49%~114 MillionManages the \u201cUtilities Select Sector SPDR Fund\u201d (XLU).<\/p>\n

WE REALLY NEED TO WAKE UP FOLKS \u2013 AND OUR LEADERS BETTER LEARN WHAT IS HAPPENING- AND BELIEVE ME WHEN I SAY THEY DO NOT KNOW-<\/p>\n

The Institutional Grip on Oregon\u2019s Energy Utilities<\/p>\n

(As of February 2026 reporting)<\/p>\n

Utility CompanyVanguard (%)BlackRock (%)State Street (%)Combined BlockNoteNextEra Energy\u00a010.37%8.21%5.49%24.07%Developer of Big Meeks (400 MW BESS)NW Natural Gas11.47%16.06%4.88%32.41%Major donor to the Natural Gas PACPGE11.12%13.52%4.06%28.70%Owner of the Constable BESS and the entire gridPacifiCorp11.24%*8.35%*5.30%*24.89%*Owned via Berkshire Hathaway<\/p>\n

We are now under the control of Private Equity Fimrs including our Power and Gas Bills \u2013 Let That Sink In<\/p>\n

And according to public records, NextEra Energy, Inc, PAC has been funding and sponsoring organizations and political interests with ties to the Hillsboro land expansions we have been writing about.\u00a0 More on this soon, but let\u2019s have no doubts, and I keep saying it, our power grid and valley is being sold out to and taken over by Private Equity firms who see our land, water, and energy as a complete gold rush!<\/p>\n

We have covered other BESS battery installations that have quietly been placed in Hillsboro over the last year.\u00a0 And we have covered how horribly dangerous these facilitites are and can be, and how their economics are not to make our invidual power rates better- rather the power is bougth cheap from PGE and sold high to Data Centers and big users at a max profit.<\/p>\n

Closing thoughts-\u00a0 It seems Hillsboro has something up its sleeve.\u00a0 This 400 MW BESS Battery could be a one-off, and it may just send power back onto the grid for nearby data centers.\u00a0 But other tidbits have come my way that have me believing that an AI facility or some other user may be about to enter the story- and this BIG MEEK Battery project has our radar way up!<\/p>\n

BONUS CONTENT:<\/p>\n

Hillsboro\u2019s Lithium Ion BESS Battery Boom Is Happening in the Quiet \u2014 and That\u2019s the Problem<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Updated Hillsboro BESS Comparison \u2013 We Are Now Battery CityProject NamePower (MW)Total Storage (MWh)Status \/ LocationPGE Constable75 MW300 MWhOperational (Hillsboro)Jupiter (Blackberry Grove)100 MW400 MWhApproved (West Union Rd)Chickadee BESS100 MW400 MWhIn Review (Near Helvetia Market)Big Meeks (NextEra)400 MW1,600 MWhProposed (North Hillsboro)Check Out Our Map- What has Hillsboro Been Buying?<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/p>\n

NextEra Energy (NEE) Institutional Ownership 2026 \u2013 MarketBeat<\/p>\n

Ownership. Analyst Forecasts. Insider Trades. Ownership. SEC Filings. Short Interest. Institutional Ownership Changes (13F Filings) for NextEra Energy \u2026<\/p>\n

NextEra Energy Latest Ownership Pattern \u2013 Insider, Institutional, Mutual Fund shareholdings<\/p>\n

No of Institutions holding shares. Created with Highcharts 7.2.2 Values 22 3,126 Total count Insider Data Fund Company Data Mutual Fund Data 0 2.5k 5k 7.5k. \u2026<\/p>\n

NEE \u2013 NextEra Energy, Inc. Stock \u2013 Stock Price, Institutional Ownership, Shareholders (NYSE) \u2013 Fintel<\/p>\n

# Important NoteFile Date | Source | Investor\u2014 | \u2014 | \u20142026-02-02 | 13F | Addison Capital Co2026-02-02 | 13F | Danske Bank A\/s2026-02-02 | 13F | E<\/p>\n

\"BESBESs Batteries Aer Taking Over Hillsboro, Oregon in 2026 \u2013 Generated Content for Comparison<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Real Story \u2013 A Column I am totally immersed in every land sale, every movement of equipment,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[115032,4,450,7258,451,3,452,453],"class_list":["post-456712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-bess","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-data-centers","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}