Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California, has energized a 12.37-megawatt solar carport that Six Flags describes as California’s largest single-site commercial carport renewable energy project. Solar Power World reported the energization on Oct. 2, 2026, and Electrek followed on Oct. 5 with the project’s equipment list: 22,908 panels over 36 carport structures.
The ranking is the company’s own claim. No independent body has published a list that places the carport first, and Electrek’s own headline settles on “one of the largest solar carports in the United States.”
Panels, storage and chargers under 36 canopies
According to Electrek, the system uses 22,908 RECOM bifacial panels mounted on 36 carport structures, which cover about 637,000 square feet and shade about 4,315 parking spaces, 3,544 for guests and 771 for employees. A battery rated at 2 megawatts and 8 megawatt-hours sits alongside, roughly four hours of discharge at full output, and 109 electric vehicle connectors serve the guest and employee lots.
The array is expected to generate about 20.8 million kilowatt-hours a year, enough to offset the annual electricity use of the park and neighboring Hurricane Harbor Los Angeles, according to Electrek. The system is interconnected with Southern California Edison, and the parks can still draw from the grid when on-site generation falls short, as Solar Power World reported.
Earlier descriptions of the battery differed, which matters because storage sizing changes how much solar output can be shifted into the evening: a 2023 Solar Power World report on the groundbreaking cited a 2 MW, 16 MWh system, and Six Flags’ own April 2023 release gave 1.958 MW and 7,886.3 kWh. The 2026 reports use 2 MW and 8 MWh, the figure Electrek and Solar Power World both carry, and the older 16 MWh number appears only in the 2023 groundbreaking coverage.
Energization and the people who built it
Solar Power World’s report, reposted by Now.Solar on Oct. 3, carries comments from Brian Oerding, park president of Six Flags Magic Mountain, who called the energization a transformative moment for the park and its sustainability journey. Arno Aghamalian, CEO of Solar Optimum, the developer, said his team was “proud to celebrate the energization of this extraordinary project with Six Flags.” The article gives no exact energization date and ends with a note identifying it as a news item from Six Flags Entertainment Corporation.
Solar Optimum and DSD Renewables began construction with a groundbreaking on Nov. 1, 2023, per Electrek. At the groundbreaking, Jeff Harris, then interim president of the park, said Six Flags was “thrilled to be breaking ground on this monumental project,” according to a June 2024 Energy-Tech item on the panel supplier, Recom Technologies.
The carport is Six Flags’ third large solar site. The April 2023 release said Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Northern California and Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey already had over 30 megawatts operating between them, putting the three parks at 42.37 megawatts once the Valencia carport was added. The same release estimated 517.89 million kilowatt-hours of output over 25 years and quoted Danielle Fidel of DSD Renewables saying that using the parking lot for solar canopies would offset 100 percent of the park’s energy use while also shading customers’ cars.
The California-largest claim, and whose it is
Six Flags’ April 2023 announcement said the project would rank as the largest single-site commercial renewable energy project in California, and the same release paired it with “largest solar project allocated toward a for-profit organization in the United States.” Its subheadline went further, to the world’s largest for-profit organization site powered by renewable energy, a scope the release does not reconcile with the narrower U.S. wording in its opening.
The Energy-Tech item gives the closest match to the wording now in circulation: it attributes the phrase “California’s largest single-site commercial carport renewable energy project” to Six Flags, and attributes “the largest single-interconnection commercial and industrial development in the world” to Solar Optimum. A November 2023 pv magazine USA report was more guarded, saying the installation ranks among the largest single-site commercial-scale solar installations in California and is particularly large for a carport.
Solar Power World’s 2023 groundbreaking coverage said the project was “likely the largest single-site commercial energy project in California,” with no outside source cited. Electrek’s 2026 text calls it California’s largest solar carport without attribution to a ranking body.
What each source measures differs: carport versus all solar, single site versus single interconnection, state versus nation. The 12.37-megawatt capacity, the 22,908 panels and Aghamalian’s and Oerding’s remarks are the specifics that more than one outlet has reported consistently, and the park’s expected 20.8 million kilowatt-hours a year is the output figure still to be checked against metered production.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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