Federal officials on Friday approved a
plan that sets aside 285,000 acres of public land for the development of
large-scale solar power plants, cementing a new government approach to
renewable energy development in the West after years of delays and false
starts. The plan replaces the department's previous first-come, first-served
system of approving solar projects, which let developers choose where
they wanted to build utility-scale solar sites and allowed for land
speculation. The department no longer will decide projects on case-by-case basis
as it had since 2005, when solar developers began filing applications.
Instead, the department will direct development to land it has
identified as having fewer wildlife and natural-resource obstacles. The government is establishing 17 new "solar energy zones" on 285,000
acres in six states: California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado and
New Mexico. Most of the land — 153,627 acres — is in Southern
California. Environmental groups like the Nature Conservancy who had been
critical of the federal government's previous approach to solar
development in the desert applauded the new plan.
"We can develop the clean, renewable energy that is essential to our
future while protecting our iconic desert landscapes by directing
development to areas that are more degraded," said Michael Powelson, the
conservancy's North American director of energy programs...more
The BLM map is here.
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