2.8 GWh collocated battery storage project lands US government approval

The US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on Monday issued a final decision approving Arevia Power’s $2.3 billion, 700 MW solar, plus 700 MW/2.8 GWh battery storage Libra Solar project, the biggest colocated project in the state of Nevada.

The project, developed by Arevia Power about 30 kilometers south of the Fort Churchill substation in Yerington, near the Mineral County/Lyon County border, is expected to be in service by the end of 2027.

In June, Arevia Power announced the signing of a power purchase agreement with local utility NV Energy.

In the same announcement on Monday, the US Department of Interior said it had also given a tick of approval to NV Energy’s Greenlink West transmission project, which will run 350 miles from Las Vegas to Yerington and considerably increase the state’s transmission capacity.

The BLM has also opened a comment period for the Bonanza Solar Project Draft Resource Management Plan Amendment and Environmental Impact Statement. The proposed 300 MW solar facility would include a 195 MW/780 MWh battery storage system and a 5.4-mile gen-tie line on approximately 5,133 acres of public lands in Clark and Nye counties, near Las Vegas.  

The July round of BLM project advancements included the Esmerelda 7 solar project, one of the largest solar projects in the world. Esmerelda 7 is a set of seven proposed utility-scale solar facilities with a cumulative capacity of 6.2 GW and colocated with battery energy storage systems with a cumulative power output of 5.2 GW near Tonopah, Nevada.

The projects are proposed to be developed on 118,000 acres of BLM managed land. The 45-day public comment period on the Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement and Resource Management Plan Amendment for Esmeralda 7 is still ongoing.