Wait, The Esmaralda 7 Solar Power Projects Are Not Dead, Yet

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US President Donald Trump never met a bridge he didn’t want to burn. That includes one to Republican Governor Joe Lombardo of Nevada. Lombardo spent all year currying favor with the president only to break into a flop sweat of epic proportions in July, when the Interior Department moved to quash the state’s gigantic Esmeralda 7 group of solar power projects along with other renewables in the pipeline. Sure enough, last week — oh, wait. Hold, please. The death of Esmeralda 7 may have been greatly exaggerated … for now….

The Rise Of The Esmeralda 7 Solar Power Projects

If you are new to the topic of Esmeralda 7, join the club. The project surfaced briefly on the CleanTechnica radar two years ago when the Interior Department dropped word that it greenlit the group along with a swarm of other renewable energy projects in the region.

“Today, the BLM will publish the Notice of Intent to Amend the Resource Management Plan and prepare an associated Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for the Esmeralda Solar Projects in Esmeralda County, Nevada,” the DOI intoned in a press statement dated November 11, 2023.

“The seven solar projects are expected to generate up to 5.3 gigawatts of electricity, which would be enough electricity to power approximately 4 million households,” DOI added somewhat more excitedly.

The gigawatt total bumped up to 6.2 gigawatts as of this year, spread among seven contiguous solar-plus-storage projects in Esmeralda County under the wing of several developers, including NextEra Energy Resources, Leeward Renewable Energy, Arevia Power, and Invenergy.

As for what good is a supersized solar power project in a sparsely populated area, that’s a good question. Esmeralda County measures its entire human population in hundreds, not thousands let alone tens of thousands.

The Greenlink Connection

The answer to that question is Greenlink, a new transmission network connecting Esmeralda 7 to other energy-thirsty markets in the region. As of 2023, the proposed 450-mile Greenlink West and the 232-mile Greenlink North transmission projects were in the development pipeline under the purview of NV Energy.

If all goes according to plan, the West branch will run between Las Vegas and Reno, opening up areas for up to 4 gigawatts of renewable energy development in Clark, Lyon, Mineral, Nye, and Storey counties as well as Esmeralda County. The North branch will run along Highway 50, linking Yerington to Ely, where it will ultimately hook up with an existing Ely-to-Vegas transmission line, thereby fostering more gigawatts of renewable energy development in White Pine, Eureka, Lander, Churchill, and Lyon counties.

And that’s where Governor Lombardo finally realized that all his fawning and fetching has fallen upon deaf ears. On July 15, DOI issued new guidelines for approving wind and solar projects on public lands, including transmission projects like Greenlink, which require federal right-of-way permits for their footprint on private land. No Greenlink, no renewables.

As reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal on August 7, the DOI memo prompted Lombardo to write a letter of objection to Interior Secretary (and notable energy storage denier) Doug Burgum, in which Lombardo noted that the state’s mining and data center industries were banking on wind and solar power to fuel their future growth. Keepers of the public coffers also anticipated $6 billion in state and local taxes alongside many thousands of jobs for Nevadan working on new wind, solar, transmission, and storage projects in the pipeline.

“Without the energy to support important and burgeoning sectors of the State’s economy which also propel key industry priorities for this Administration, Nevadans will miss out on the jobs and economic benefits that flow to them,” Lombardo insisted.

Next Steps For Nevada’s Signature Solar Power Project

Much good that did Lombardo. He tried to assure Burgum that energy storage actually exists, noting that “virtually all” solar power projects currently in the pipeline include integrated energy storage systems. Batteries like these, the existence of which Burgum has denied, “which will allow for the delivery of reliable, dispatchable energy where it is most needed,” Lombardo pleaded. Nevertheless, last week, the DOI seemingly dropped a bomb on Esmeralda 7, sparking a torrent of reports that the whole project had been canceled outright.

The nonprofit news organization Nevada Current reported a somewhat less sensational situation. On October 10, Current reporter Jeniffer Solis reported that BLM still plans to review each of the seven projects separately, while noting that the office has indeed canceled its review of the Esmeralda 7 project as a whole.

“The Department of the Interior said the impacted energy companies will now have the option to submit a separate application for their individual project proposals,” Solis reported, citing an email received by the Current from a spokesperson for BLM on October 10.

The email also made it clear that Esmeralda 7 is not canceled. “The BLM did not cancel the project,” the email reads. “During routine discussions prior to the lapse in appropriations, the proponents and BLM agreed to change their approach for the Esmeralda 7 Solar Project in Nevada.”

As of this writing, no word yet on a definitive answer from NV Energy or any of the Esmeralda 7 stakeholders. So, what comes next?

Taking a page from the US offshore wind industry, perhaps some or all of them will sue in federal court. After all, that worked for the Revolution Wind offshore project in Massachusetts — for the time being. All bets are off if the US Supreme Court ends up rendering a final decision on that project.

Lessons From The US Offshore Wind Industry

A lawsuit may not be necessary, though. If the BLM email is accurate, the developers (“the proponents”) themselves agreed to the new, separated review process, leaving each firm free to negotiate on a deal on its own (Trumpspeak translation: “nice solar power project you got there, wouldn’t want anything to happen to it”).

In that regard, NextEra may be safe. The company already forked over at least $5 million to help Trump build a $200 million vanity project on the grounds of the White House.

If that fails, Governor Lombardo himself could meet with President Trump in person, face to face, mobster style, and cut a deal to save some or all of the projects. That is reportedly how New York Governor Kathy Hochul managed to save the Empire Wind offshore project from the chopping block along with another New York project, Sunrise Wind. On the other hand, Interior Secretary Burgum recently noted that both projects are under further review, ensuring that Governor Hochul is amenable to further deal-making if she really does not want anything to happen to them.

If you have any thoughts about that, drop a note in the comment thread. Before you do, consider the case of the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project. Although that project, too, is on Burgum’s re-review list, it has the vigorous support of Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin. So far, work has continued unimpeded and the project is on track for completion next year.

What’s a Nevada governor to do? Glenn Youngkin gets his signature renewable energy project in the bag, while Joe Lombardo faces the prospect of walking away with bupkis. Youngkin is term-limited this year and Lombardo is up for re-election next year — maybe that has something to do with it. Hold on to your hats….

Photo: Rumors of the death of the Esmeralda 7 solar power and energy storage projects in Nevada have been greatly exaggerated, at least for the time being…[screenshot via Nevada Current].