Nevada regulators have given a green light to utility NV Energy’s plan to add nearly 1.2 gigawatts of solar and 590 megawatts of batteries, underscoring a broader push toward renewable energy and storage by other Western utilities also owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.
The new projects are part of NV Energy’s integrated resource plan approved Wednesday by the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada. NV Energy announced the projects in June with developers 8minute Solar Energy, EDF Renewables, Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners and Arevia Power, and it expects them to be online in 2023.
This massive solar procurement includes Quinbrook and Arevia’s newly approved Gemini project, at 690 megawatts, which is tied with the Misae 2 project in Texas as the country’s largest single solar PV array. 8Minute’s 300-megawatt Southern Bighorn project and EDF’s 200-megawatt Arrow Canyon project complete the solar portion of the procurement.
All three projects will also come with at least four hours of energy storage capacity to shift hundreds of megawatts of solar power from peak midday output into later in the afternoon or evening. Gemini’s 690 megawatts of solar will be matched by a 380-megawatt battery array with about 1.5 gigawatt-hours of storage capacity. That could make it the biggest solar-paired utility storage projects in the country, as compared to the previous record holder, the 409-megawatt/900-megawatt-hour Manatee Energy Storage Center being built by NextEra Energy’s Florida Power & Light.
8Minute Energy CEO Tom Buttgenbach noted in June that the Southern Bighorn project, which will match 300 megawatts of solar with a 135-megawatt/540-megawatt-hour battery system, could run 65 percent of the time during peak summer hours, as opposed to the roughly 30 percent availability of the average solar plant in Nevada. The Arrow Canyon project offers an even more extended 5-hour storage duration, pairing 200 megawatts of solar with a 75-megawatt/375-megawatt-hour battery array.
These lengthening megawatt-hour figures for NV Energy’s latest solar-storage power-purchase agreements reflect a trend for longer-duration storage across the country, as falling battery prices allow for more cost-effective shifting of solar production. They’re also important for states like Nevada and Arizona that are starting to see the same “duck curve” effects as nearby California, where solar generation is pushing cheap energy onto the grid at midday that fades away in the evening hours when electricity demand spikes.
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