Amazon is already buying power from the first solar field, now Warren County is being asked to approve another.
On August 6, 2026, a public notice appeared in the newspaper for an upcoming Warren County Planning and Zoning Commission meeting.
Most of it was ordinary local-government language. Then came the new business:
Blue Bird Solar II, LLC
c/o Oliver Chag, Ranger Power
Request for Solar Overlay District
The application covers 21 parcels. Planning and Zoning will hear it August 20 2026 and then make a recommendation to the Warren County Commission. It is the Roman numeral that matters.
II.
Because there is already a Blue Bird Solar in Warren County. I know that project well. Long before I knew Amazon was connected to it, Blue Bird was part of the landscape I had learned to read while following the power lines, substations and transmission infrastructure around my parent’s property, the home I grew up in. Those lines eventually became part of a much larger investigation into what was being built across the I-70 corridor and why.
What I learned much more recently was who had quietly become one of Blue Bird’s customers: Amazon Energy LLC. And that changes what Warren County should be asking before it approves Blue Bird Solar II.
What is Blue Bird Solar today?
The first Blue Bird is no longer a proposal. It is an operating 139-megawatt utility-scale solar generating facility north of Warrenton. Federal energy data places commercial operation in December 2024. It consists of 139 MW of AC generating capacity, connects at 161 kV, operates in MISO and lists Union Electric Company — Ameren Missouri — as the transmission owner.
That distinction is important: Ameren owns the transmission system that Blue Bird connects to. That does not mean Ameren owns Blue Bird Solar. Today’s corporate structure is considerably more layered than that.
The project is legally carried by Blue Bird Solar, LLC. Industry records identify Ranger Power as the developer behind the 139-MW Warren County project. By November 2023, D.E. Shaw Renewable Investments — DESRI — was telling the Warren County Record directly that DESRI owned Blue Bird Solar. FERC corporate filings subsequently list Blue Bird Solar LLC alongside DESRI Holdings and DESRI’s generation portfolio. In January 2025, funds managed by Macquarie Asset Management completed a significant minority investment in DESRI. That does not make Macquarie the direct owner of Blue Bird, but it adds another layer of capital ownership above the project company.
In spring 2026, Invenergy advertised an O&M Manager position for Show Me State Solar and Blue Bird Solar. The posting described Blue Bird as a 139-MW facility north of Warrenton and said the manager would be responsible for managing both solar centers.
So even the simple question Who owns and operates the solar farm? produces several different answers depending upon what part of the project you mean:
Ranger developed it.
Blue Bird Solar LLC is the project entity.
DESRI identified itself as owner.
Macquarie funds now hold a significant minority interest in DESRI.
Invenergy Services is managing operations and maintenance.
Ameren owns the transmission system into which it connects.
And then there is the company buying some of its electricity.
Amazon.
That corporate layering is not unusual in modern energy development. But it is exactly why the LLC name on a local zoning notice tells the public very little about who ultimately finances, controls, operates or benefits from the asset.
Blue Bird was a power project years before it became a field of panels
The history of Blue Bird is visible if you know which records to follow.
On December 17, 2019, MISO filed a Generator Interconnection Agreement with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission identified as: UEC–Blue Bird Solar GIA (J817).
UEC is Union Electric Company, Ameren Missouri’s legal utility entity. The agreement was effective December 3, 2019.
That number — J817 — is Blue Bird’s fingerprint throughout the transmission record. Ameren’s own long-range transmission planning documents subsequently describe:
“New Blue Bird Solar (J817) interconnection.”
And then state what Ameren intended to construct:
terminal facilities at the Warrenton 161-kV substation to interconnect J817.
By 2020, environmental work was underway. A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers record contains a wetland and waterway survey prepared for Blue Bird Solar, LLC — Solar Permitting, with the project’s boundaries mapped in Warren County near the Lincoln County line.
So years before the panels began producing electricity, the project already existed in multiple governmental systems:
land development,
environmental permitting,
MISO interconnection,
FERC filings,
and Ameren transmission planning.
That matters because infrastructure development does not begin when the public sees construction. By then, an enormous amount of the project may already have happened on paper.
What Warren County knew
The public record becomes particularly interesting in November 2023. The Warren County Record initially published a story suggesting Amazon was developing another solar farm in Warren County. It later published a front-page correction.
The corrected headline was, “Amazon isn’t building a new solar farm in Warren County.”
But the correction did not remove Amazon from the story. It clarified Amazon’s role. The newspaper said its original information had come directly from Amazon. Warren County Presiding Commissioner Joe Gildehaus then explained that Amazon was not building the facility — it was buying electricity from the solar farm already under construction.
The article also stated something important about local government: Warren County had already approved construction of the farm. Gildehaus connected the newspaper with D.E. Shaw Renewable Investments, which confirmed in writing:
“The Blue Bird Solar project is owned by D. E. Shaw Renewable Investments.”
That 2023 correction deserves a central place in this story because, viewed from 2026, it reads differently.
The disagreement was never over whether Amazon had a relationship with Blue Bird. The correction was over what that relationship was. Amazon wasn’t the developer. Amazon was the purchaser. At the time, that may have seemed like a fairly minor distinction.
Federal energy records now show just how substantial that purchasing relationship actually was.
The contract behind the correction
Federal Electric Quarterly Report data submitted for Blue Bird Solar identifies:
Seller: Blue Bird Solar, LLC
Buyer: Amazon Energy LLC
Product: ENERGY
Contract: BBS-002
Contract execution date: October 25, 2022
Contract commencement: December 23, 2024
Contract termination: December 23, 2041
Class: UnitPowerSale
Term: LongTerm
Balancing authority: MISO
Point of delivery: Warrenton 161-kV Substation
And these are not merely prospective contract terms. The transaction records show actual electricity sales. For September 2025, Blue Bird reported selling 29,583 MWh to Amazon Energy under the agreement at $16 per MWh, for a reported transaction charge of $473,424.08.
That was the piece I had not known when I first began following Blue Bird. Amazon’s relationship to the project wasn’t something created after the solar farm opened. Amazon’s contract was executed October 25, 2022 — more than two years before Blue Bird began commercial operation.
Amazon Energy is also not some unrelated company that happens to share the Amazon name. In a federal proceeding earlier this year, Amazon Energy described itself as a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon.com and an affiliate of Amazon Web Services, engaged in the business of marketing wholesale power.
That does not mean every megawatt generated by Blue Bird goes to Amazon.
It doesn’t.
Blue Bird participates in the MISO market as well, and its federal transaction records show other counterparties. But the documents do establish something much more specific than the vague phrase “Amazon supports renewable energy.” Amazon Energy contracted in 2022 to purchase part of the electricity produced by a Warren County power plant through a long-term arrangement extending to 2041.
What was that power supposed to support?
In 2023, the original reporting surrounding Amazon and Blue Bird described the electricity as supporting Amazon’s Missouri operations. A later Bipartisan Policy Center Missouri energy report states that Blue Bird had partnered with Amazon to provide electricity to Amazon’s local operations, including fulfillment centers, sorting centers and delivery stations.
That is the public explanation we had.
Then came 2026.
On June 15, Missouri announced that Amazon would invest $10 billion in a new data-center campus in Montgomery County. The state identified Ameren Missouri as the local utility and said Amazon would pay the costs associated with connecting the enormous new load to the grid.
Amazon’s own announcement contained another line. While discussing the new Missouri data-center investment, Amazon said it had already, “invested in a carbon-free energy project in Missouri generating 138 MW.”
Blue Bird is federally reported as 139 MW.
That one-megawatt difference may simply reflect different measurements or rounding, but the size alone is not enough for me to claim Amazon’s unnamed 138-MW reference is definitively Blue Bird. Fortunately, we do not need the size comparison to prove that Amazon is involved with Blue Bird.
The FERC power-market records already name Amazon Energy LLC as the buyer.
The Warren County Record already documented in 2023 that Amazon was purchasing electricity from Blue Bird.
And a later energy-policy report explicitly identifies Blue Bird as an Amazon-linked source supporting its Missouri operations.
The unanswered question is narrower — and more important: How does Amazon’s long-term Blue Bird procurement fit into the energy portfolio behind the new AWS load now arriving in Montgomery County?
I have not found a document showing a dedicated physical delivery of Blue Bird electricity to Project Green. That is not how an interconnected regional grid should be imagined anyway. The power enters MISO through the Warrenton 161-kV system. Amazon’s contractual purchase and the physical dispatch of individual electrons are not the same thing.
The significant finding is the commercial relationship.
Amazon was securing long-term Missouri generation years before the public unveiling of one of the largest electricity-consuming industrial developments ever proposed in this region.
Meanwhile, Warren County became financially tied to Blue Bird too
By 2025, Blue Bird was no longer simply something Warren County had approved. It was producing payments to local government.
Reporting on an October 2025 County Commission meeting describes a county agreement under which Blue Bird and Split Rail received exemptions on taxes associated with their new facilities in exchange for payments in lieu of taxes. For Blue Bird, the reported formula was $2,250 per megawatt for 35 years, escalating 2 percent annually. On 139 MW, Commissioner Gildehaus calculated that year’s payment at $312,750, with money distributed among Warren County R-III, emergency services, the library, county road funds and other political subdivisions.
That history matters now.
The county is not encountering the Blue Bird name for the first time on August 20. It has already approved the first project. It has entered a long-term financial arrangement around the first project. Its presiding commissioner publicly explained Amazon’s role in the first project. And now a company called Blue Bird Solar II LLC is back asking the county to establish another solar overlay.
There is one more record sitting between Blue Bird I and Blue Bird II
This may prove to be the most important, unresolved piece of the story.
On September 13, 2022, MISO received an interconnection request identified as J2806.
The project is:
Solar
200 MW
Warren County, Missouri
Point of interconnection: Warrenton 161-kV Substation
Transmission owner: Ameren Missouri
It remains listed as Active in Queue.
A MISO Definitive Planning Phase study gives the same project a Phase I network-upgrade estimate of approximately $73.28 million.
J2806 is not the original Blue Bird. We know Blue Bird I is J817.
And therefore the timeline becomes extraordinary:
September 13, 2022 — another 200-MW solar project enters the MISO queue at Warrenton 161 kV.
October 25, 2022 — Amazon Energy executes its long-term agreement with Blue Bird I at Warrenton 161 kV.
December 2024 — Blue Bird I begins operating.
2025 — Blue Bird is making PILOT payments in Warren County while Amazon is buying its electricity.
June 2026 — Amazon publicly announces a $10 billion AWS campus in Montgomery County, served by Ameren, and references an existing 138-MW Missouri carbon-free-energy investment.
August 2026 — Warren County publishes a notice from Blue Bird Solar II LLC / Ranger Power seeking another Solar Overlay District.
There are 42 days between J2806 entering MISO’s queue and Amazon executing BBS-002.
That is a fact.
What it means remains an open question. I have not yet found a document identifying Blue Bird Solar II LLC as J2806’s interconnection customer. Until that document exists, I will not report that they are the same project.
But there are only two possibilities, and both deserve public attention.
If Blue Bird Solar II is J2806, then what appears in Warren County’s newspaper this week as a new local zoning request may correspond to a 200-MW project that entered the regional transmission-planning process nearly four years ago.
If Blue Bird Solar II is not J2806, then Warren County potentially has two additional utility-scale solar developments beyond the existing Blue Bird: the unidentified 200-MW J2806 project and Blue Bird Solar II.
Either answer matters.
Now Warren County gets a second chance to ask first
That is ultimately why the August 20 notice matters so much. The first Blue Bird is no longer an abstraction. We can look backward now and see what the original public process did not place neatly in front of residents:
a project LLC;
a developer;
an investment owner;
an Ameren interconnection;
a MISO queue number;
a long-term county tax arrangement;
a wholesale buyer;
and a contract with Amazon Energy LLC signed years before the public knew Amazon would bring hyperscale data-center demand into the region.
Now Blue Bird Solar II is at the beginning of the local process. This time, those questions can be asked before the project is built.
The public should ask for one complete record:
- the full Blue Bird Solar II application and parcel map; proposed acreage and megawatts; its MISO queue number and point of interconnection; every current parent, affiliate, developer and party with an acquisition option; any executed or proposed PPA, unit-power-sale, renewable-energy, REC or offtake agreement; whether Amazon Energy, Amazon Web Services, Amazon Data Services or another hyperscale customer has any contractual interest; whether DESRI or a DESRI affiliate has an ownership or purchase right; whether the project is J2806; what transmission upgrades are required and who pays for them; and what tax-abatement, PILOT or other public-finance arrangement is being sought.
Because Warren County does not have to speculate about why those questions matter.
Blue Bird I already gave us the lesson.
A local solar project can have one name on the zoning application, another company developing it, another investment firm owning it, another company operating it, another utility carrying its output, and one of the largest technology companies in the world sitting on the other side of the power contract.
And the public may never see those relationships assembled in one place unless somebody goes looking for them.
That is what makes Blue Bird Solar II news for Warren County, and something rural counties nationwide should pay attention to. It is not simply that another solar farm may be coming, but that this time, we know where to look before it gets here.