Construction is underway by NV Energy (NYSE:NVE) on Southern Nevada’s first non-solar renewable energy project, which will be located 35 miles south of Las Vegas near Goodsprings, Nevada.

The Goodsprings Waste Heat Recovery Plant is being built in partnership with Kern River Gas Transmission Company, a wholly-owned subsidiary of MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company, and by Ormat Nevada Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ormat Technologies Inc. (NYSE: ORA).  

The project will produce six megawatts of around-the-clock renewable energy, enough to supply approximately 3,600 homes in Southern Nevada. The waste-heat-recovery project is being built adjacent to the Kern River Goodsprings compressor station.  The project will use a process to capture the heat from Kern River’s natural gas-fueled compressors, and then use that heat to turn a separate generator to produce electricity.   To save water, the project will use a dry-cooling system.

Ormat is the technology provider, and is also serving as the project’s engineering, procurement and construction contractor.  During the construction phase, the project will employ an average of 15 workers, and that number will climb to approximately 30 during the peak construction activity.  The project is scheduled to be completed in October.

The Goodsprings Waste Heat Recovery Plant is one of 44 separate geothermal, solar, biomass, small hydro, wind and waste-heat recovery projects under contract that are either in commercial operation or the project-development stage.  The company’s renewable energy portfolio is more than 1,200 megawatts.