How Nevada became one of America's largest battery storage markets
Smart policies, abundant land, and retiring fossil fuel plants are fueling a clean energy revolution in Nevada.
When clean energy journalists and analysts cover America's battery storage boom, they typically highlight California and Texas. And for good reason: The two states have historically made up the vast majority of the US storage market’s growth.
But this is changing quickly. In 2022, California and Texas were responsible for 88% of America’s storage capacity additions. Last year, in 2024, that number fell to 73%. In 2025, California and Texas will build 62% of new storage capacity in the US, according to our latest report.
This fall in market share hasn’t been caused by a decline in storage capacity growth in California or Texas. Those markets continue to grow. Instead it's been the result of huge growth in storage capacity in a handful of states like Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Hawaii.
In today’s newsletter we’ll cover one of those fast-growing storage markets that has received little attention: Nevada.
Nevada’s transformation from coal state to storage leader is no accident. Policymakers and regulators in the state have passed some of the smartest clean energy policies in the country and taken advantage of Nevada’s abundant land and sunshine.
In today’s story, we’ll look at how the Silver State became a storage leader and what the rest of the country can learn from its success. We’ll cover:
How Nevada's ambitious clean energy standards drove the initial storage boom
Why supportive regulators made financing large-scale batteries viable
How Nevada's perfect geography creates economies of scale
Why solar's success created the perfect battery opportunity
How batteries are helping Nevada meet peak demand and capture export opportunities
Solar's success creates the perfect battery opportunity
Where solar goes, battery storage soon follows. I’ve come to think of that as a sort of law of the storage market in recent years.
High solar penetration creates volatile electricity prices—illustrated by the famous duck curve. Because solar has a marginal generation cost of zero, operators of projects can afford to submit bids for zero dollars per megawatt hour—or in some cases, below zero due to subsidies and PPA dynamics. On a sunny day in a booming solar market that pushes wholesale electricity prices close to zero.
This has created an opportunity for battery developers. They can charge when prices are low, and in some cases they can even get paid to absorb excess electricity generation. Then they can discharge when prices are high in the evenings.
In few states is this opportunity greater than Nevada. The state generated just under 30% of its electricity from utility-scale solar in 2024—three times the U.S. average. No state has a higher solar penetration rate, not even California.
Perfect geography creates economies of scale
Nevada has ideal conditions for solar deployment: abundant sunshine and—critically— vast available land near major load centers like Las Vegas and Reno.
In the Northeastern US, cities neighbor other cities, which neighbor suburbs, which themselves neighbor dense forests. It’s a geography ripe for NIMBYism and high costs to build big infrastructure projects. In Nevada, by contrast, you can drive from the state’s largest city to BLM land in a matter of minutes. In fact, no other state has a higher percentage of land managed by the federal agency.
This geographic advantage has enabled gigantic solar farms with co-located batteries that achieve significant economies of scale. (It also creates significant risk going forward given the Trump administration’s recent policy changes).
Nevada's solar-plus-storage portfolio now includes several massive projects that showcase this trend. The Gemini Solar Hybrid facility, completed in March 2024 with 690 MW of solar capacity and 380 MW of storage capacity, stands as one of the world's biggest solar-plus-storage plants. Not too far away, the Reid Gardner storage project adds another 220 MW of capacity.
According to Cleanview's project tracker, Nevada now hosts 66 utility-scale solar farms with a combined capacity of 5,285 MW, with six new facilities added in 2024 alone.
The sheer scale of these projects lowers per-MW costs, making the solar+storage combination highly competitive. NV Energy reported PPA prices around $27–$30/MWh for solar and ~$13/kW-month for storage in these projects. These low costs have made it more feasible to include batteries to meet peak demand.
Ambitious renewable standards sparked the battery boom
Federal policy, plummeting solar costs, and geographic advantages have all contributed to Nevada’s clean energy success. But as anyone who has followed the sluggish solar market in the Southeastern US can attest, these factors alone can’t deliver an energy transition.
Nevada’s solar and storage boom have been driven by some of the most supportive clean energy policies in the country.
In 2019, Nevada's legislature dramatically increased the state's renewable portfolio standard (RPS), jumping from 25% to 50% by 2030, with a goal to be 100% carbon-neutral by 2050. This wasn't just an incremental policy change—it was a dramatic shift that effectively mandated NV Energy to procure massive new renewable resources.
The utility responded immediately with an ambitious plan to add 1,200 MW of solar and 590 MW of battery storage by 2023—a portfolio promptly approved by regulators. This RPS increase drove an estimated 200% increase in solar builds during 2019-2024, with almost all new projects including battery storage components.
The law also included provisions discouraging fossil fuels, prohibiting new coal and limiting gas expansion. This effectively nudged the utility to use batteries for reliability instead of the gas peakers that utilities have traditionally relied on.
Supportive regulators made financing viable
While many states have ambitious clean energy goals, Nevada stands out for its regulatory environment that's been notably supportive of large-scale storage deployment.
In December 2024, the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada (PUCN) approved NV Energy's 2024 Integrated Resource Plan, which includes over 1 GW of new battery storage power purchase agreements.
Crucially, regulators authorized long-term contracts that properly value storage as capacity. For instance, NV Energy's PPA for the upcoming Libra project pays $13.35/kW-month for the 700 MW battery capacity—about $160/kW-year—which sends a strong price signal rewarding storage.
These generous capacity payments, locked in for 20 years, were justified by regulators as cheaper than building new gas turbines. The PUC's willingness to approve multi-decade PPAs has been a top driver of development, giving battery developers the long-term revenue certainty they need to secure financing.
Meeting peak demand and capturing export opportunities
Nevada, like neighboring Arizona, has summer-peaking demand, with Las Vegas's peak load occurring around 6 PM on hot days. Historically, NV Energy relied on gas peakers to meet this evening demand spike. Now, however, the utility is deploying batteries as a cheaper alternative.
Another key driver is Nevada's opportunity to export power to California. By storing solar generation and exporting it during evening hours when California ISO prices are highest, NV Energy can maximize profits. As part of the Western Energy Imbalance Market, Nevada has seen multiple days where evening power prices in California spiked above $1,000/MWh—creating lucrative opportunities for battery discharge.
This arbitrage incentive—sell high to California, buy low during midday—is a driver that NV Energy highlighted in its integrated resource plan, noting that storage can "improve regional market economics for Nevada customers." The utility estimated a net benefit of $3–$5/MWh cycled via market arbitrage from its first five battery projects.
Nevada is just the beginning
Nevada's emergence as a battery storage leader follows a familiar pattern in America's energy transition. In the early 2010s, Iowa and Texas pioneered utility-scale wind development thanks to exceptional resources and supportive policies. A few years later, California and North Carolina led the country's initial solar boom.
Today, Nevada is playing that same pioneering role for battery storage. Its combination of high solar penetration, perfect geography, and smart policy frameworks has made it an early adopter of a technology that will soon become ubiquitous.
Nevada won't be the last storage success story. Just as wind spread from Iowa and Texas to Oklahoma and Kansas, and solar expanded beyond California to states like Arizona and Florida, battery storage will likely proliferate across the country. Nevada is simply an early adopter of a technology that is quickly becoming essential to America's clean energy future.
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Exciting! But when discussing storage, you should provide the total energy storage in MWh as well as the power delivery capacity. For example, going to the Reid Gardner site I see that it's rated at 220 MW/440 MWh. This means once it's fully charged, it can deliver full power for 2 hours, or half power (110 MW) for 4 hours. Ideal for the evening "shoulder" period, but probably not enough to get through the night. (Which is where wind, and other storage technologies, come in.)