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The Dept. of the Inside lately launched an up to date roadmap for photo voltaic improvement throughout the West that ought to broaden photo voltaic vitality manufacturing in additional Western states. The Bureau of Land Administration launched a revised environmental assessment of the Western Photo Voltaic Plan, also called the Photo Voltaic Programmatic Environmental Impression Assertion (PEIS), a doc that was final up to date in 2012.
The up-to-date roadmap identifies public land in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming that may be superb for photo voltaic leases. BLM labored with NREL to look at forecasts for nationwide clear vitality wants and decided that roughly 700,000 acres of public lands could be wanted to fulfill these objectives. The BLM’s most well-liked different within the up-to-date Western Photo Voltaic Plan would offer roughly 22 million acres of land open for photo voltaic software, giving the most flexibility to achieve the nation’s clear vitality objectives.
By directing improvement to areas that have fewer delicate sources, much less battle with different use of public lands and shut proximity to transmission strains, the BLM can allow clear vitality extra effectively whereas sustaining sturdy public and Tribal engagement, which are central options of all BLM evaluations of particular person initiatives.
BLM utilized $4.3 million from the Inflation Discount Act to spend money on these vital updates to the Western Photo Voltaic Plan. This funding helps enhance the photo voltaic improvement software course by offering builders higher predictability, while additionally sustaining ample flexibility to handle site-specific useful resource concerns. This planning work additionally seeks to offer updates that reply to adjustments, like advances in know-how, which have occurred for the reason that BLM’s final programmatic photo voltaic improvement planning effort over a decade in the past.
“Immediately, the Bureau of Land Administration revised a decade-old coverage and opened 22 million acres of federal land for accountable photo voltaic improvement. The proposal additionally identifies 200,000 acres of land close to transmission infrastructure, serving to right a vital oversight and streamline photo voltaic improvement,” mentioned Ben Norris, VP of regulatory affairs at SEIA, when BLM launched the brand new doc. “Underneath the present coverage, there are not less than 80 million acres of federal lands open to grease and gasoline improvement, which is 100 times the quantity of public land out there for photo voltaic. BLM’s proposal is a giant step in the appropriate path and acknowledges the important thing function photo voltaic performs in our vitality financial system.”
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