The Biden administration is proposing to set aside some 22 million acres of federal land in 11 western states for solar electric generation. The administration move would update its 2012 Western Solar Plan. It adds 5.4 million acres in five states — Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington state, and Wyoming – to the 16.6 million acres set aside in 2012 in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah.
The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management used some $4.3 million in Inflation Reduction Act funds to conduct the analysis leading to the increase in what it informally calls its “Solar Roadmap.” The agency contracted with the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory “to examine forecasts for national clean energy needs and determined that approximately 700,000 acres of public lands would be needed to meet those goals,” according to a BLM news release. NREL’s work made a major contribution to BLM’s 538-page draft environmental impact statement.
In the news release, Laura Daniel-Davis, Interior’s acting deputy secretary, said, “The Interior Department’s work to responsibly and quickly develop renewable energy projects is crucial to achieving the Biden-Harris administration’s goal of a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035 – and this updated solar roadmap will help us get there in more states and on more lands across the West.”
The BLM plan would give streamlined permitting authority to solar projects that meet criteria designed to assure that they are located for easy connection to the transmission grid. The streamlined permitting would be available to projects located within 10 miles of existing or planned transmission with at least 100 kV of carrying capacity. BLM says the plan could bring on some 100 GW of new solar capacity over the next 20 years.
BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning said, “When all is said and done, all of the energy projects that we are announcing today will deliver enough clean energy to power more than a half-a-million homes.”
BLM analyzed six scenarios in its draft environment statement, choosing “Alternative 3” as the preferred course of action. Alternative 3, according to BLM, will prevent “transmission infrastructure sprawl” while “protecting high-value resources, thus reducing habitat fragmentation, natural resource disturbance and environmental and cultural resource impacts.”
The Wilderness Society, based in Washington, D.C., praised the BLM plan, commenting, “This process can ensure renewables development meets energy needs, is smart from the start and prioritizes community and tribal input.” Justin Meuse, the group’s director of government relations for energy and climate said, “Renewable energy on public lands can be a win-win-win. Better tribal engagement, better community buy-in and lower impact siting leads to faster, better projects. We need a Western Solar Plan that meets our energy needs while honoring the other vital roles public lands play for wildlife, people and our shared future in the era of climate change. It’s imperative and it’s possible.”
“Solar projects require so much land, they have become a major contributor to the decline of the iconic desert tortoise and other species. Solar energy should be developed on rooftops, over parking lots and on previously disturbed sites, not on intact habitat,” Kevin Emmerich, Basin and Range Watch.
Local opposition to the BLM solar plan may develop. Utility Dive cited Kevin Emmerich of Nevada-based Basin and Range Watch as noting that it appears that Alternative 3 may include a site in Nevada that the Environmental Protection Agency has said is unsuitable for solar development because of a lack of adequate water resources. In 2010, EPA objected to locating a solar project in Nevada’s Amargosa Valley.
In objections to another BLM-approved project in the Mojave Desert, Emmerich said, “Solar projects require so much land, they have become a major contributor to the decline of the iconic desert tortoise and other species. Solar energy should be developed on rooftops, over parking lots and on previously disturbed sites, not on intact habitat.”
BLM’s comment period on the plan runs through April 18, with the goal to have the final product in place by the end of the year.
–Kennedy Maize