{"id":689287,"date":"2026-10-19T19:25:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T19:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=689287"},"modified":"2026-10-19T19:25:00","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T19:25:00","slug":"geothermal-just-undercut-solar-plus-storage-in-sunny-nevada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=689287","title":{"rendered":"Geothermal Just Undercut Solar-Plus-Storage In Sunny Nevada"},"content":{"rendered":"

Geothermal Just Undercut Solar-Plus-Storage In Sunny Nevada<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Geothermal has long been the clean, firm power source<\/strong> that was always a few breakthroughs away from being cheap enough to matter. Numbers buried in a Nevada utility filing suggest that day may have arrived.<\/p>\n

Joel Edwards, co-founder and CTO of geothermal developer Zanskar, put it bluntly earlier this month: “to all the geothermal believers out there, the flippening has come<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n

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to all the geothermal believers out there, the flippening has come in NV Energy\u2019s 2026 filing, 3 geothermal offers came in at $105\u2013107\/MWh, below the ~$114\/MWh capacity-weighted average for 11 solar + bess offers in Nevada, of all the sunny places the 3 solar + bess projects NV Energy put forward in 2024 averaged ~$94\/MWh, but this 2026 slate is pricier, e.g., Boulder Solar III\u2019s levelized price jumped from ~$85\/MWh to ~$125\/MWh after permitting delays, land carrying costs, higher financing costs, and, of course, big, bad tariffs. could geothermal pull off a solar + wind circa 2010 move and scale faster to come down the cost curve? it now has a much longer tax-credit runway than new solar + wind projects (oh how the tables have turned), plus firm output and higher energy density (all true for nuclear too) and for the 24\/7 solar crowd: the ~$114\/MWh average covers solar paired mostly with 4-hour batteries, and we all know 12+ hours of storage would cost more and still wouldn\u2019t cover multi-day gaps it might be time for more geothermal, people<\/p>\n

\u2014 Joel Edwards (@joelhedwards) October 7, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In NV Energy’s 2026 resource plan<\/a>, three geothermal offers came in at $105 to $107 per megawatt-hour<\/strong>. That’s below the roughly $114\/MWh<\/strong> capacity-weighted average for the 11 solar+battery projects in the same filing.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Using the filing’s corrected prices, the three geothermal deals total 180 MW at a weighted $105.56\/MWh, versus 4,370 MW of solar-plus-storage at $113.89\/MWh.<\/p>\n

Geothermal just barely comes in about 7% cheaper.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Part of the story is solar getting pricier<\/strong>. Edwards notes the three solar-plus-storage projects NV Energy put forward in 2024 averaged about $94\/MWh.<\/p>\n

This time, Boulder Solar III’s levelized price jumped from about $85\/MWh to $125\/MWh after “permitting delays, land carrying costs, higher financing costs, and, of course, big, bad tariffs.”<\/p>\n

The bigger point is what each megawatt-hour buys. A geothermal plant pulls heat from underground and runs day and night, whatever the weather. We said<\/a> the same thing back in April, that it’s “firm 24\/7 power that intermittent renewables struggle to match.”<\/p>\n

The solar average, meanwhile, “covers solar paired mostly with 4-hour batteries,” Edwards wrote, “and we all know 12+ hours of storage would cost more and still wouldn’t cover multi-day gaps.”<\/p>\n

That’s why data centers are signing up for geothermal<\/strong>. Google is backing up to 150 MW of new Ormat geothermal through NV Energy, and Amazon is backing<\/a> 100 MW from Zanskar.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To be fair, geothermal beat the average, not every bid. Sleepy Orange came in at $89.80\/MWh and White Pine Solar at $101.92. Two of the three geothermal deals (and two of the solar ones) are also “sleeved” contracts tied to specific big customers rather than open bids.<\/p>\n

A longer runway<\/h3>\n

Edwards asks whether geothermal could “pull off a solar + wind circa 2010 move and scale faster to come down the cost curve.”<\/p>\n

Under last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill, wind and solar projects that didn’t begin construction by July 4 of this year must be in service by the end of 2027 to claim federal tax credits. But geothermal, like battery storage, keeps the full credit<\/strong> for projects that start construction through 2033<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The drilling learning curve is already compounding. In July, we noted<\/a> that Fervo’s third-generation well design boosted drilling rates 143%, with its latest Cape Station well finished in 21 days. Last month, Big Oil backed<\/a> Mazama’s $135 million bet on superhot geothermal, whose second well hit 10,350 feet about 80% faster than its first. And as we noted<\/a> in August, the Trump administration increasingly sees geothermal as an AI power source.<\/p>\n

DOE’s “Enhanced Geothermal Shot<\/a>” aims to bring next-generation geothermal down to $45\/MWh by 2035<\/strong>, well under half of what Nevada was just offered.<\/p>\n

Public geothermal is getting crushed<\/h3>\n

Ormat (ORA), one of the only pure-play publicly traded geothermal companies, is down 19% year to date<\/strong>. Fervo (FRVO), which priced its IPO at $27 in May and closed its first day at $36, finished Friday at just over $9, a record closing low and 64% below its IPO price<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Fervo warned in August of transmission curtailment at Cape Station, and on Oct. 6 short seller Morpheus Research<\/a> alleged thermal decline, water loss and seismicity problems at its sites.<\/p>\n

All this came days after Cape Station’s first 33 MW block began commercial operation a day ahead of schedule.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the market is still up over 10% this year, and the energy ETF XLE has soared 51% as the US-Iran war drags on.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nMon, 10\/19\/2026 – 15:25<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Geothermal Just Undercut Solar-Plus-Storage In Sunny Nevada Geothermal has long been the clean, firm power source that was always a few breakthroughs away from being cheap enough to matter. Numbers buried in a Nevada utility filing suggest that day may have arrived. Joel Edwards, co-founder and CTO of geothermal developer Zanskar, put it bluntly earlier… Continue reading Geothermal Just Undercut Solar-Plus-Storage In Sunny Nevada<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[18,19,10,21,12,11,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-689287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancel-culture","category-censorship","category-civil-liberties","category-election-integrity","category-equal-justice","category-free-speech","category-religious-freedom","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=689287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689287\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=689287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=689287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=689287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}