BLM advances massive Pahrump Valley solar project

Federal land managers are moving forward with the proposed Purple Sage Energy Center project, a massive solar-generation facility about 13 miles south of Pahrump, Nevada. 

The Bureau of Land Management issued a final environmental review and resource management plan last week for the proposed 400‑megawatt Purple Sage Energy Center project on more than 4,500 acres of public land near the Nevada-California border. It would be one of largest solar generation projects in the state.

The project was one of at least 35 commercial-scale solar power projects that were under at least preliminary review by BLM when President Donald Trump took office. Federal land managers released the project’s draft environmental review in January 2025, taking about one and half years to issue a final review.

Several large-scale renewable energy projects planned on public lands in Nevada faced delays following Trump’s “Unleashing American Energy” executive order which targeted renewable energy.

The Department of the Interior later issued a memo mandating that all solar and wind energy projects on public lands be personally approved by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. Some of those projects have been cleared to move forward, while others, including portions of a massive solar project in Esmeralda County, haven’t.

Once completed, Purple Sage Energy Center is expected to generate over 1.2 million megawatts of solar energy annually, enough to power more than 100,000 homes per year, according to the developer Noble Solar LLC. The project will include an energy facility with integrated battery storage and a transmission line connecting to the Trout Canyon Substation in Clark County.

While the project will be built in Clark County much of the power generated will be sold in California. In 2024, Primergy Solar – the developer’s parent company – entered a purchase agreement with  San Diego Community Power. 

The project has also received support from the state of Nevada. In late 2024, the Nevada Governor’s Office of Energy granted the project a partial tax abatement. The agreement provides significant reductions in both property and sales taxes over the project’s development and operational lifespan.

The total value of these abated taxes is estimated at roughly $99.5 million over a 20 year period. The project developers, Noble Solar LLC, estimates the project will generate about $90 million in remaining local tax payments over its lifetime for local schools and Clark County infrastructure.

Purple Sage Energy Center is one of nine solar energy projects that BLM has approved or is processing applications for approval in the Pahrump Valley. The proposed project would be adjacent to the Yellow Pine, Larrea, and Mosey Solar projects.

During the project’s comment period, several opposing groups expressed concern that the project’s water withdrawals could impact already over-allocated groundwater basins and the Pahrump Valley groundwater basin, which is interconnected with other basins.

About 900 acre-feet of water is anticipated to be used over the 18-month construction period. After the facility is operational, the water use would drop to around 28 acre-feet per year, according to the Purple Sage development plan.

The project footprint has been modified and reduced over the past four years to lessen impacts to the region’s important resources, but conservation groups said the project will still require the removal of threatened desert tortoises from the site and will degrade hundreds of acres of habitat.

Construction impacts would result in nearly 860 acres of existing habitat being permanently degraded, according to BLM’s final review.

“The Purple Sage Energy Center would impact Ice Age fossils, rare plants, desert tortoises, groundwater, mesquite woodlands and the Old Spanish National Historic Trail.” Said Kevin Emmerich, Co-Founder of Basin and Range Watch. “Conservation of natural and cultural resources has taken a back seat to the BLM’s infrastructure plans for the region.”

In 2023, Basin and Range Watch and several other conservation groups nominated a 140,000 acre Area of Critical Environmental Concern as a conservation alternative to the energy plans of the region, but it was never considered by BLM, said Emmerich.

However, pushback on the project has resulted in the project footprint being modified and reduced over the past 4 years to lessen impacts to the region’s important resources.

In order to mitigate some of those impacts the final environmental review recommended a slight alternative to the proposed project using input from the public, stakeholders, and participating and cooperating agencies.

According to BLM, its recommended alternative would minimize long-term disturbance to vegetation and soils within the solar facility by setting stricter restoration standards. Those standards would include additional topsoil salvage that could increase potential for native vegetation regrowth once restoration is completed. 

Conservation groups and locals expressed concern about the potential for the solar facility to increase fire risk due to lithium-ion batteries and the spread of flammable invasive grasses, like wheatgrass. BLM said the alternative’s restoration standards would decrease the likelihood of invasive grasses by increasing the return of native plants.

Federal land managers said the alternative would also reduce the risk of Valley Fever, a potentially deadly illness carried through dust, becoming airborne in fugitive dust by restoring more native plants more quickly. 

The final environmental review is now under a 30-day protest period which will close July 13, 2026.