Interior to Auction 83 Nevada Geothermal Leases Covering About 265,691 Acres, Overlapping Planned Solar Projects
The U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is scheduled to auction 83 geothermal lease parcels in Nevada on Tuesday, October 20, totaling about 265,691 acres across 10 counties, according to federal documents reported by Reuters on October 19; a September BLM amendment put the revised acreage at about 265,155. Half of the bid, rent and royalty revenue from the sale will go to Nevada, a quarter to the county where each lease sits and a quarter to the U.S. Treasury. Geothermal leases run for an initial 10 years and can be extended for exploration, development or production. BLM says Nevada has 28 geothermal plants operating or authorized on land with a federal interest, with more than 950 megawatts of authorized capacity.
Maps BLM published in August show six proposed geothermal parcels overlapping four major planned solar developments. NextEra Energy, the world's largest owner of solar and wind generation, asked the agency earlier this year to remove, defer or reconfigure three parcels, saying the overlap covers roughly 6,000 acres, or about 60 percent, of its planned 1,000-megawatt Sawtooth Energy Center in Nye County, and could create a foreseeable conflict with its pending application. BLM declined the request in August, saying federal lands are managed for multiple uses; the agency said NextEra must collaborate with any potential lessee and adjust its operations to avoid land-use conflicts, and that if NextEra's project is approved first it would hold the senior right, with geothermal development required to avoid impacts on it. One parcel overlapping the Sawtooth site entirely no longer appears on the auction website.
Dallas-based Leeward Renewable Energy said a geothermal parcel overlaps about 735 acres of its proposed Lone Mountain solar project in Esmeralda County, and Invenergy's 300-megawatt Nivloc project and Arevia Power's 1,500-megawatt Gold Dust project also overlap proposed geothermal parcels, according to the sale documents. Those projects were part of the Esmeralda 7 complex, seven proposed solar farms on 62,000 acres whose environmental review BLM canceled in 2025, while noting the projects may reapply individually. The Trump administration has promoted geothermal energy as an always-on power source while largely excluding wind and solar from its accelerated federal permitting effort. (GSM, via Reuters)
The sale opened at 10 a.m. Eastern on October 20 on the Efficient Markets online platform, with bidding starting at the federal minimum of $2 an acre. Geothermal lease prices have soared to records this year: the average winning price at a Utah sale in August hit a record $339 an acre, compared with a pre-2025 record of just $63 an acre, and a Nevada sale a year ago averaged $32 an acre. It is the fourth of six federal lease sales in 2026 and the first this year in Nevada, one of the most active geothermal states thanks to companies including Ormat and Fervo. The Trump administration has promoted geothermal as an always-on power source that can help meet electricity demand driven by the expansion of super intelligence.
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：Nevada 州 Washoe Valley 一带联邦土地与沙漠地带航拍（资料图）。Ken Lund 摄，CC BY-SA 2.0，经 Wikimedia Commons 发布。
