Pahrump-based utility to receive $80M for solar project through Inflation Reduction Act

The funding will help subsidize the installation of a 37-megawatt solar power generation and storage system that will service the Pahrump and Fish Lake Valley region, officials said. 

A rural Nevada electric utility company was awarded more than $80 million in federal grant funding last week to aid in the construction and installation of solar panels that officials say will be able to power up to 3,500 homes once fully operational. 

The Pahrump-based Valley Electric Association was awarded $80.3 million from the US Department of Agriculture’s Powering Affordable Clean Energy (PACE) program on Thursday, part of a broader $140 million funding announcement to expand clean energy projects in rural areas, according to a press release from the agency. Those funds will be used to help install a 37-megawatt solar power generation and storage system that will service the Pahrump and Fish Lake Valley region, and is expected to lower costs for consumers while also improving reliability.

“Rural people deserve continued energy opportunities as demand for clean energy increases,” Deputy USDA Secretary Xochitl Torres Small said in a statement. “The Biden-Harris Administration is working to make sure efforts to tackle climate change also help grow the local economy. These USDA investments will lower costs for Americans and create good-paying jobs in rural communities for years to come.”

Neither the USDA nor Valley Electric specified how many jobs would be created by the expansion. The utility was selected in part because it serves communities participating in the Rural Partners Network, a USDA-led collaboration between federal, state, and local agencies first passed into law with the help of Nevada US Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto. The collaboration seeks to help rural and underserved locales access federal funding.  

“Nevada is one of the solar capitals of the world, and this investment will deliver clean, reliable energy to rural Nevadans while lowering costs and creating good-paying jobs,” Cortez Masto, a Democrat, said in a statement. “I was proud to help secure this funding, and to help establish the Rural Partners Network which has made it easier for Valley Electric and their local partners to access the resources they need to power the area.”

Extreme heat and nearby wildfires can sometimes cause blackouts that in years past have disrupted service for the Pahrump and Fish Lake Valley area, officials said. Amid a historic drought plaguing much of the American West, including southwestern Nevada, and intensifying heat waves brought on by climate change, this investment will help provide uninterrupted service even when conditions are ripe for blackouts, officials added. 

“We are grateful and realize how fortunate we are to have successfully navigated this unbelievably competitive process,” Mark Stallons, CEO of Valley Electric, said in a statement. “Since the summer of 2020 when the threat of rolling outages became a recurring summer event, power supply in the western markets has been extremely volatile. Access to affordable power in the early evening hours literally disappeared from the marketplace and we quickly realized we needed a solar [and] storage solution to mitigate the price volatility and grid resiliency risk.”

Thursday’s announcement marks the largest public investment in rural electrification since the Franklin Roosevelt administration, the USDA said. The PACE program is funded by the Inflation Reduction Act, a 2022 bill signed into law by the Biden-Harris administration in 2022 and marks the most substantive investment in clean energy ever taken, according to the White House. 

Still, before the funds are doled out, Valley Electric must present a community benefits plan that considers labor agreements and the environmental impact of the project, the Las Vegas Sun reported Friday. 

Details on those provisions were not immediately available.