Expanding on the Obama administration’s 2012 goal to use public lands for renewable energy, the Bureau of Land Management is improving the 32 rules of modern renewable development.
The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced new plans It will improve and speed up renewable energy development in the Southwest region as it aims to deploy 25 GWac of capacity by 2025.
BLM said it is expanding its “programmatic” process to transition renewable projects to a development process created in 2012. Formal version of the review – Partially considered in this document – Open to the public.
The programmatic review process uses 32 exclusion categories.
Using one of these categories, the 79 million acres where projects are prohibited, the 285,000 acres where solar is needed (Solar Energy Zones, or SEZs), and the 1,900 available for development outside SEZs and Exclusion Zones. Used to define 10,000 acres of land. Its availability is subject to due diligence and responsible proposition.
BLM is considering whether the 22 million acres of California’s Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan should be added to its analysis area. Another exception under consideration is whether the requirement that solar power plants can only be built in areas where solar radiation exceeds 6.5 kWh/m2/day should be adjusted. This requirement was based on pre-2012 solar technology and pricing.
In addition to the Development Assistance Plan, BLM has announced that it will begin reviewing three facilities totaling 1 GWac in Arizona.
Environmental analysis is the first facility Jobe Solar ProjectThe facility will be deployed on 3,495 acres of land with a capacity of up to 600 MWac. The power plant is located in La Paz county.
The documents do not specify ownership of the facility, but it appears that Taurus Solar LLC owns the Jove Solar project, which was formerly known as Taurus Solar. Some documents, like the site plan below, still refer to Taurus, but the outline is the same as the Jove facility. All of these documents are available at his BLM link above.
Image: BLM, Project Site Plan
The chain of ownership for this project is long. The solar farm is owned by Taurus Solar LLC, and 174 PG LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hanwha Energy USA Holdings Corporation and is likely owned in some way. It is owned by Hanwha Group, a global conglomerate in South Korea.
In the project area map above, the pipeline is the straight line that bisects the solar plant from east to west. The nearly horizontal line at the top of the map is I-10, running parallel to the proposed 500 KV transmission line. Note the proposed interconnection point in the upper left corner. It is built to connect solar installations to the power grid.
Two other facilities – 300 MWac pinion solar Maricopa County project owned by Avantus (previously known as 8 Minute Solar Energy) and 300 MWac Elizabeth Solar Yuma County Project – Still in early stages of development.
This article was amended on December 12, 2022 to reflect that the Pinyon Solar Project is a 300 MW facility instead of the previously stated 250 MW.
This content is copyrighted and may not be reused. If you would like to cooperate with us and reuse some of our content, please contact us at: editors@pv-magazine.com.
