BLM Updates ‘Roadmap’ for Solar Energy Development in the West

WASHINGTON — The Bureau of Land Management has updated its roadmap for solar energy development across the West with the aim of making the siting and permitting of projects on public lands more efficient.

In rolling out the new roadmap, the agency also announced “next steps” for several projects currently under development in Arizona, California and Nevada.

Taken together, the projects represent more than 1,700 MWs of potential solar generation and 1,300 MWs of potential battery storage capacity. 

Since President Joe Biden’s inauguration, the BLM has approved 47 clean energy projects and permitted 11,236 MWs of wind, solar and geothermal energy on public lands — enough to power an estimated 3.5 million homes. 

“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,” said Acting Deputy Secretary of the Interior Laura Daniel-Davis. 

“This updated solar roadmap will help us get there in more states and on more lands across the West,” she said. 

The department also published a draft analysis of the Utility-Scale Solar Energy Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (known as the updated Western Solar Plan), which would streamline the BLM’s framework for siting solar energy projects.

The proposal is an update of BLM’s 2012 Western Solar Plan, which identified areas in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah with high solar potential and low resource conflicts in order to guide responsible solar development and provide certainty to developers. 

Following months of stakeholder engagements — including 15 public scoping meetings — the updated roadmap refines the analysis in the original six states and expands it to include Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming. 

After considering updates to the Western Solar Plan, the BLM determined that approximately 700,000 acres of public lands would be needed to meet those goals. 

The agency’s preferred alternative in the updated Western Solar Plan would provide approximately 22 million acres of land open for solar application, giving maximum flexibility to reach the nation’s clean energy goals.  

The analysis evaluates six alternatives, each proposing to make different amounts of public land available to solar development applications under different criteria such as proximity to transmission infrastructure, designated critical habitat or other important ecological and cultural resources. 

The public can submit written comments through April 18. For more details on how, go here.

In related news, the agency unveiled next steps on several onshore renewable projects throughout the West. 

In Nevada, the BLM is advancing four proposed solar projects: 

• The BLM released a draft environmental impact statement for the proposed Libra Solar Project in Mineral and Lyon counties, which, if approved, will generate and store up to 700 MWs of photovoltaic solar energy that would power approximately 212,233 homes.  
• The BLM released a draft environmental impact statement for the Rough Hat Clark County Solar Project, which, if approved, will add 400 MWs of clean solar photovoltaic power to the grid, enough to power approximately 121,276 homes. The proposed project would also include a 700-megawatt battery energy storage system.  
• The BLM announced a Notice of Intent for the Dodge Flat II Solar project in Nevada, which, if approved, will generate up to 200 MWs of photovoltaic solar energy on approximately 700 acres of public lands in Washoe County. This would be enough to power approximately 60,638 homes, the agency said.  
• The BLM released the draft environmental assessment for the Dry Lake East Energy Center Solar Project, which would build a 200-MW photovoltaic solar facility with 200 MWs of battery energy storage and an additional 400-MW battery energy storage facility. 

In California, the BLM will release in the coming days a Notice to Proceed for the Camino Solar Project in Kern County, allowing construction to begin on a 44-megawatt photovoltaic solar facility on 233 acres of public land that will power approximately 13,340 homes.  

In Arizona, the BLM announced construction of the White Wing Ranch Solar Project has been completed. White Wing Ranch is a 179-megawatt solar photovoltaic project located on private lands in Yuma County with a generation interconnection (gen-tie) line across approximately 3.5 miles of BLM administered land. This project has the potential to power 54,271 homes.  

Lastly, the agency said construction on the Harquahala Valley Sunrise gen-tie line in Arizona will begin next month. 

It will connect the HV Sun solar project, which is a 150-megawatt solar photovoltaic project located on 1,000 acres of private lands in Maricopa County, with a gen-tie transmission line across approximately 1.1 miles of BLM-administered land. This project will power approximately 45,479 homes.

Dan can be reached at [email protected] and @DanMcCue