Boulder City owns its land. Tonight, it decides how the next big chunk of it gets used.
At 5 p.m. today, Tuesday, November 10, the Boulder City Council takes up Bill 2138 and proposed Agreement 26-152 with Copper Mountain 6 LLC. The meeting is in the Council Chamber at 401 California Avenue, Boulder City, NV 89005.
The draft covers roughly 1,300 acres of city land at 15450 US 95 South, in the Dutchmans Pass and Black Hills North area. The stated use is utility-scale renewable generation and battery energy storage.
Tonight Is a First Reading, Not a Done Deal
Here is the part most headlines will skip. Tonight is an introduction, the ordinance stage of the process.
An introduction is not final adoption. It is not an executed lease, and it is not permission to build anything.
Copper Mountain 6 LLC is a Delaware limited-liability company wholly owned by RWE Americas LLC, according to the council packet. The packet says Boulder City issued RFP 2025-07, received ten bids, and selected RWE after evaluation, with Resolution 8131 authorizing negotiations on May 12.
The Money, Line by Line
The draft pays the city before a single panel goes up. The proposed option payment is $500,000 per year, paid quarterly, plus a separate $150,000 execution payment due within 60 days under the draft terms.
- Base lease rate: $2,300 per acre
- First lease year: up to $2.76 million, if all 1,200 priced acres in the formula are used
- Term: 25 years, with two five-year options and a 2 percent annual escalator
- Battery storage fee: $2,100 per megawatt
- Battery fire-service fee: $194 per megawatt, plus a general fire fee of $60 per acre
Notice the gap in those numbers. The site runs about 1,300 acres, while the lease formula prices 1,200 of them.
City staff project about $4.805 million in cumulative payments through fiscal 2030 and $84.316 million through fiscal 2050. Those totals exclude property taxes and building-permit revenue, and they are projections, not guaranteed receipts.
How to Use Tonight if You Live in Boulder City
Go in knowing what tonight can and cannot settle. The draft does not establish the project's final generating capacity, its financing, or a signed grid interconnection agreement.
Land rights also do not replace the later approvals. Environmental review, building permits, fire planning, and utility approvals would still come separately.
- Attend the 5 p.m. meeting at the Council Chamber, or send a written comment through the city's official comment form.
- Ask what changed between the draft and the final text before any final reading.
- Ask what acreage and capacity will actually be optioned and leased, not just what the draft allows.
- Ask what fire-response and decommissioning security the final agreement requires.
Boulder City has built its budget on desert land for years. Tonight is the first public step on the next 1,300 acres, and the first step is exactly when residents have the most say.
