Six years after Nevada voters approved a constitutional amendment requiring in-state utilities to get half of their power from renewable sources by 2030, NV Energy says it is on track to miss those clean energy standards for the first time.
The culprit? A staggering amount of power requests from prospective data centers looking to operate in the state as AI computing explodes — and not enough renewable energy to power them, even though the utility is required to.
NV Energy predicts it will need 47 percent more energy than it forecast just two years ago to meet the needs of data centers and other large-scale customers. To cope, it wants to rely more on natural gas — a fuel that, while less polluting than coal, is not renewable and emits carbon.
Although there is no law requiring it, NV Energy requires data center developers to agree to fund their own infrastructure and energy needs, minimizing effects on Nevadans’ electrical bills. But coupled with Trump administration efforts that are slowing renewable energy development, the sudden surge of demand means NV Energy could fail to meet the state’s clean energy goals as soon as next year.
Nevada was one of the first states to implement a renewable portfolio standard (RPS) when it passed legislation in 1997; in 2020, 60 percent of Nevada voters supported a ballot measure requiring utilities to gradually pull 50 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2030.
But during a December presentation, NV Energy’s Vice President of Regulatory Janet Wells noted that the utility needs to nearly double its energy pulled from renewable sources to meet the state’s 2030 clean energy target while serving customers.
By 2050, the amount of clean energy required is forecast to triple.
“When you consider all of the inputs and what we’re facing in the current environment, the company is anticipating challenges in meeting the RPS compliance,” she said. “We won’t know until we actually see what load materializes.”
Failing to meet the RPS can result in a fine levied on the utility by state energy regulators.
The details of how the utility will address the energy shortage will be outlined in a draft Integrated Resource Plan ( IRP ), a type of roadmap presenting immediate and longer-term needs, that it will submit to state energy regulators in April. NV Energy is required by law to submit a plan every three years. It last submitted a plan in 2024; the upcoming plan is being submitted a year early in part because of the overwhelming amount of forecasted energy needs.
Olivia Tanager, director of the Sierra Club’s Toiyabe Chapter, said it’s alarming.
“For the utility to come back and file a new IRP… and for the projections to keep going up is terrifying, given where we are at with other energy issues,” she said.
Data centers are facilities that store, process and manage massive amounts of digital data. Growing use of artificial intelligence and heavier reliance on computers means that data centers, which require copious amounts of water and energy to run, are being built at a rapid rate across the country and especially in Nevada, which offers a wealth of tax incentives to data centers.
NV Energy didn’t share the exact number of data centers in its queue, but says that the existing queue would require more than 15,600 megawatts more than the utility’s existing system. (One megawatt is enough energy to power hundreds of homes at the same time.)
Data center companies are known to put out feelers in multiple states, seeing who can provide power the fastest and cheapest, said Brian Turner, senior director at Advanced Energy United, an industry association focused on advancing clean energy policy.
“They’re shopping around,” he said.
While data centers have options, investor-owned utilities such as NV Energy do not — if a data center decides to set up shop in Nevada, the utility is legally obligated to provide power to it, just like any other business.
But the utility does have the option of telling data centers that their power must come from renewable sources and that those will take time to build out, Tanager said — a move that could help the utility reach state clean energy goals.
NV Energy did not answer questions from The Nevada Independent on whether it had worked with the governor’s office to slow the expansion of data centers in the state.
So far, NV Energy has met state RPS goals
Nevada was at the forefront of renewable energy policy when it adopted an RPS in 1997. In 2019, lawmakers voted to gradually increase the RPS, ramping it up to 50 percent by 2030.
“If we’ve got this voracious appetite for load and the utility has an obligation to serve, we need to make sure that we’re guaranteeing a minimum standard that’s met,” former state Sen. Chris Brooks (D-Las Vegas), who introduced the legislation, told The Nevada Independent.
The RPS is not a direct measure of renewable power generation. Instead, it’s essentially a state-created marketplace with renewable energy production generating energy credits that can be bought and sold. The RPS requires NV Energy to meet a certain percentage standard by turning in enough credits in proportion with total electricity generation. In the initial years of the RPS, the utility could also receive credits for energy efficiency programs — that ended in 2025.
Since enacted, NV Energy has met the RPS.
In 2023, when the target was 29 percent, NV Energy clocked in at 39.7 percent. In 2024, the utility reported an RPS of 46.8 percent. The utility won’t report its 2025 percentage until April, but the company said in an email that it “anticipate(s) exceeding the RPS percentage required for 2025.”
If the utility cannot meet the RPS, it can ask state energy regulators for a waiver. The commission could grant a waiver if it determines there was not a sufficient supply of electricity from renewable energy sources; commissioners would also consider whether the utility should have built its own renewable energy systems to comply with the RPS.
If regulators do not issue a waiver, the utility could face an administrative fine. The utility is not allowed to pass the cost of the fine, defined in state law as an amount not to “exceed the amount which is necessary and reasonable to ensure the provider complies with its portfolio standard, as determined by the Commission” on to its customers.
Between 2021 and 2023, 11 states achieved their RPS goals, according to a study from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Another 18 states and Washington, D.C., came up short; some of the Delaware’s%20gap,under%20an%20RPS%2C%20Greenstone%20said.”>largest shortfalls were attributed to negligible penalties for failing to meet the RPS.
Slow solar development in Nevada
Nationwide, developers plan to add 60 percent more solar capacity this year than it did last year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, as developers hustle to wrap up projects spurred by federal clean energy tax incentives that expired last year following the passage of President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Very little of that solar development is being built in Nevada.
While NV Energy is building its Sierra Solar 30 miles from the data center hub of the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center, last year, Gov. Joe Lombardo voiced his concerns about federal moves affecting utility-scale solar projects in a letter to the Department of Interior.
Development of desirable industries, he wrote, relies on “the timely completion of solar energy projects, many of which are already in the pipeline in Nevada, to meet their energy demands.”
Lombardo flagged three distinct large-scale projects as issues of concern: Dry Lake East, Boulder Solar III and Libra Solar. NV Energy has power purchase agreements allowing the utility to purchase the energy generated at pre-negotiated rate for the three projects.
While Dry Lake East is on schedule, the developers of Libra Solar and Boulder Solar III have “expressed concerns that federal tariffs and policies have negatively affected the development of the project,” according to filings with state energy regulators. NV Energy is working with the developers of Libra Solar to try to keep the project moving along; Boulder Solar III is not moving forward as planned.
And last year, the federal government shifted gears on the environmental review process for a massive solar complex with a footprint the size of Las Vegas, known as the Esmeralda 7, potentially slowing the projects.
With some solar projects stalled, the utility is now leaning into natural gas to meet its power needs. While its draft IRP calls for 4,000 megawatts of new renewable energy sources and another 4,200 megawatts of battery storage, Wells, the NV Energy executive, stated that the utility’s “preferred plan” will add more natural gas than renewables and battery storage.
Within a decade, total new gas power sources could surpass 3 gigawatts (the equivalent of nearly 1.9 million solar panels), an amount Tanager called “staggering.”
State lawmakers getting involved?
According to the data center tracker Cleanview, the nation’s existing data centers require more than 14,000 megawatts of power to operate, and planned and proposed centers could potentially add nearly 187,000 megawatts of power needs to the grid.
“This (load growth) is a conversation happening all across the country,” said Turner with Advanced Energy United, noting that “it should create a sense of urgency.”
The site Data Center Maps notes more than three dozen existing or proposed data centers in Nevada, including the proposed Monarch Data Center Campus in Lyon County. The expansive complex includes 14 separate data center facilities.
Last week, Trump announced his new “ratepayer protection pledge,” an agreement with major tech companies who agreed to build or buy new generation resources and cover the cost of all energy infrastructure upgrades required for data centers.
While Tanager cautioned that in Nevada a “voluntary handshake won’t protect Nevada families from higher utility bills,” the utility pointed out that it already requires data center operators and developers to enter into agreements that fully fund their infrastructure, generation and energy required to power their projects.
“These measures ensure that growth pays for growth and that current customers are not exposed to added costs tied to large load projects,” utility spokesperson Katie Nannini said in an emailed statement.
Some data center developers are already developing their own power sources. Copia Power intends to build a natural gas plant to power its planned Monarch Data Center Campus in Northern Nevada and is in the permitting process for another gas plant, along with battery storage, northeast of Las Vegas near the Apex Industrial Park, an emerging data center hub.
State lawmakers are getting involved — a sweeping interim committee meeting later this month is set to focus on data centers.
Tanager, the Sierra Club director, said there’s “definitely going to be legislation” introduced in the next session about the issue.
“Look out for 2027,” she said.
The Nevada Independent is a 501(c)3 nonprofit news organization. We are committed to transparency and disclose all our donors. The following people or entities mentioned in this article are financial supporters of our work:
1. NV Energy – $310,450
2. Joe Lombardo – $2,174
3. Chris Brooks – $700
This story was originally published by The Nevada Independent and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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