No downturn in the desert — more solar projects hope to hit the sand
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) recently reported a 78 percent spike in the number of land-use applications received from solar projects interested in setting up shop in the millions of desert acres west of the Rocky Mountains. Last year, it saw 125, this year 223 — which, all told, would take up about 2.3 million of those acres, according to Greentech Media. This is a drop in the bucket relative to the 258 million acres BLM oversees, but not all of those are sufficiently sun soaked.
Most of the projects in question aim to build solar power plants capable of generating 10 megawatts and up. Many of them are listed on a downloadable Excel file here. California garnered the most interest, with 107 applications — the Mojave Desert is apparently a prime piece of real estate in the solar world. Nevada got 71 and Arizona 35. Others applied for space in New Mexico, Utah and Colorado. As Greentech notes, some of the plots are so ideal for solar operations that multiple parties applied for the same tracts.
However, a lot more stands between these projects and plant construction than just BLM’s stamp of approval. Extensive permitting and environmental reviews are required for any initiative to even break ground. To give you an idea of how stringent these standards are, only two of the 223 candidates have actually made it to the environmental review stage: proposed solar-thermal plants out of Oakland, Calif. company BrightSource Energy and Phoenix, Ariz.-based Stirling Energy Systems, producing 400 and 1,750 megawatts, respectively.
BLM officials told Greentech Media that the organization needs to hire more staff members to sift through the avalanche of applications but that any growth will depend on the priorities of the incoming Obama administration. To facilitate development in the meantime, California’s state government has looked into easing its permit procedure and streamlining the process used to determine projects’ environmental and economic footprints.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has recently emphasized the elimination of red tape for cleantech startups. In November, he signed Executive Order S-14-08 aimed at streamlining the approval process for renewable developers, couching it as both an environmental and economic necessity.
Right now, existing solar plants in the Mojave generate about 354-megawatts and power 380,000 homes. Download a map of proposed California desert solar facilities here.
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About the Author, Camille Ricketts
Camille is the lead writer for GreenBeat. She came to VentureBeat from Google where she worked on its traditional platforms team, particularly in TV. Before that, she was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal in New York and London. Follow her on Twitter at @camillericketts, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.
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