Greenlink Transmission Project Is For Data Centers, Not For People
Lake Tahoe has one year to find a new source of power as NV Energy shifts to data centers
May 15, 2026 - Reno, NV - The old saying goes: “All roads lead to Rome.” In the modern state of affairs in Nevada, it seems that all roads lead to data centers. Greenlink West Transmission Project, currently approved and under construction, is mostly connecting up to new data centers and other industrial facilities at the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center east of Reno in northern Nevada. More data centers are planned near Silver Springs, NV. Data centers here will require enormous amounts of energy, planned to come from natural gas power plants at Apex, north of Las Vegas, massive planned solar projects in Nevada’s western deserts along the route, as well as existing natural gas power east of Sparks. The huge substations being built now in Amargosa Valley and Big Smoky Valley in Esmeralda County for Greenlink give an indication of the megawatts of solar projects that can be fed into the line.
Yet NV Energy, the Investor-Owned Utility building Greenlink, has simultaneosuly announced that it will be cutting off power to the community of Lake Tahoe because of the need to direct more power to data centers in northern Nevada, concentrated around the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center. 5,900 megawatts may be needed by 2033 for data centers. Lake Tahoe in adjacent California has 49,000 residents which receive power from Liberty Utilities, which sources 75% of electricity from NV Energy. The local utility has until May 2027 until NV Energy ends its power supply agreement with Lake Tahoe.
Lake Tahoe depends entirely on NV Energy transmission infrastructure, and is not within the California Independent System Operator area. Building it’s own transmission line west across the high Sierra would costs “hundreds of millions” of dollars according to an interview with Liberty in Fortune.
There may not be enough land to build solar projects to replace this energy. Liberty might be looking to buy energy from out of state and continue to use NV Energy transmission lines.
Data centers already use 22% of Nevada’s electricity in 2024, and that number is rising.
Meanwhile we watch Greenlink West Transmission Project relentlessly move forward in construction, bulldozing new roads into desert ecosystems, carving tower pads into mountain sides, filling water trucks with locally-pumped groundwater, and opening up large swaths of the western Nevada wild outback to solar energy development.
For massive data centers.
Why does everything have to destroy the planet we depend upon... And why are people ok with that?
This is truly dystopian. Not only are they destroying vast areas of natural habitat, now they are cutting off a community because they'll get more $$ from data centers. IHTFC.