Sunseeker Solar, Washoe County, NV

A Strategic Opportunity

The Sunseeker Solar Project is a 250 MW solar photovoltaic (PV) facility integrated with a 200 MW battery energy storage system (BESS) in Washoe County, Nevada. This project is positioned to become a critical asset in the region’s growth and transition to a clean energy economy—offering a unique blend of generation capacity, storage scalability, favorable policy support, and market opportunity to meet the ever growing power demands of Northern Nevada

OVERVIEW

LOCATION

The Sunseeker Solar project site is located on 1,140 acres of private land in the Honey Lake Valley in Northern Nevada, approximately 5 miles North of the NV Energy, Ft. Sage Substation.

KEY MERITS

1. Robust Resource Availability

  • High solar irradiance in Washoe County makes the site ideal for high-efficiency energy capture.

  • Nevada ranks among the top U.S. states for solar potential, ensuring optimized capacity factors and energy yield.

2. Integrated Battery Energy Storage

  • The up to 200 MW BESS facility which has been permitted as a component of the Sunseeker Project enhances the project’s value proposition by enabling:

    • Final design and operations flexibility.

    • Time-shifting of solar output to peak demand periods.

    • Grid services such as frequency regulation and reserve capacity.

    • Increased revenue stacking opportunities (e.g., capacity markets, ancillary services).

3. Scalability and Grid Infrastructure

  • Proximity to major transmission corridors and planned interconnection with NV Energy in the Western Energy Imbalance Market (WEIM) provides:

    • Access to a broad wholesale market.

    • Opportunities for Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) or merchant market participation.

4. Favorable Policy and Regulatory Environment

  • Aligns with Nevada’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), which mandates 50% renewable energy by 2030.

  • Strong alignment with federal tax incentives such as the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) incentives for solar and energy storage development.

5. Permitting and Local Support

  • The project has been approved by the Public Utility Commission of Nevada (Docket # 24-06015)  and the Washoe County Planning Commission (WSUP25-006).

  • Preliminary planning documents reflect a low-impact site, minimizing permitting risk (e.g., limited sensitive habitat, no significant opposition to date).

DEVELOPMENT READINESS

  • Site Control: Private land leases in place on 1,140 acres with reduced lease rates during development.

  • Environmental Review Complete: No major red flags identified with only standard mitigation measures required for project implementation.

  • Interconnection: Region has strong interconnection infrastructure and the concurrent development of neighboring projects ensures that any required system upgrade costs associated with the project will be amortized across multiple projects.

RISING POWER DEMAND IN NORTHERN NEVADA

Data Center Boom

Northern Nevada has emerged as a powerhouse for data center development. Notable investments include Apple’s $1 billion facility at the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center (TRIC), along with major campuses from Switch, Google, EdgeCore, Novva, and others.

  • Tract is planning a massive data center park at TRIC—spanning 2,200 acres with 2 GW of power demand, enough electricity to power a medium-sized city.

  • NV Energy forecasts the regional grid could quadruple in size in the next few years to support this influx, driven largely by data center growth.

    nnbw.com

Regional Opportunity: Renewable Energy to the Rescue

This massive electricity demand presents a clear opportunity for renewable projects like Sunseeker:

  • With significant new infrastructure added—including NV Energy’s Greenlink West project (100-mile 525 kV line unlocking up to 4 GW of capacity by 2027)—Sunseeker is poised to feed directly into this emergent power corridor nnbw.com.

  • Data center operators actively seek clean, reliable, local power to meet ESG goals—Google alone plans to add 115 MW of geothermal in partnership with NV Energy wsj.com.

AI & Cloud: Magnifying the Need

Nationally, data center energy consumption is surging:

  • U.S. data center capacity is expected to double to 35 GW by the end of the decade reuters.com.

  • The rise of artificial intelligence is set to further spike demand; estimates suggest it could consume up to 12 % of U.S. electricity by 2028 apnews.com.

Contact

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