Skift Take
MGM’s Las Vegas’ solar deal shows how rapidly improving tech and long-term power contracts are turning renewables from a sustainability upgrade into a mainstream tool for cost control and risk management.
MGM Resorts now powers up to 100% of the daytime electricity used across its Las Vegas Strip properties with solar energy, covering 14 hotel casinos, including MGM Grand, Bellagio, and New York-New York.
Together, MGM’s Strip footprint spans roughly two miles and includes an estimated 40,000 hotel rooms.
MGM didn’t pay upfront to build the solar arrays. It worked with developers at an early stage of development and committed to buying the electricity those projects would produce.
“It’s a long several year process to the time we receive the power. We work with a developer, they put the money in and they build it and we signed a long-term deal with them to purchase the power,” Michael Gulich, vice president of sustainability at MGM Resorts, told Skift.
"And then they use that agreement to secure their financing from the bank or investors that's going to give them money. Once they have somebody who signs up and says, ‘yes I agree to
