Fall 2012

 

Riverside And Imperial County Land Pre-Approved For Solar Development

Riverside County and Imperial County are the locations of vast acreage that the Department of the Interior wants to use for a streamlined plan to create solar energy zones. In the state of California, a combined 153,627 acres in the aforementioned counties have been approved for the development of large-scale solar projects. There were 17 vast tracts identified by the federal government to choose land that would have few environmental impacts while maximizing energy output. The federal government is hoping to facilitate utility-scale solar development on public lands in six western states – Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah.

Instead of examining projects on a case-by-case basis, the Department of Interior will point developers toward land already identified as prime territory for solar development. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar called the revised plan “a roadmap for solar development for decades to come.”

PBS reports that “The release of the environmental impact statement was the result of a two-year study involving government regulators, environmental groups and utilities. It identifies land where the Department of Interior has streamlined the environmental approval process and offered reduced lease payments as development incentives.”

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu commented, “Tapping the vast potential of solar resources in the Western states will go a long way to diversifying the country’s energy portfolio and re-establishing our position as a clean energy leader in a global market worth trillions of dollars in the long term. Advancing the deployment of utility-scale solar projects will not only help provide clean power to local utilities, it will also drive down the cost of solar energy and create American jobs in the rapidly-growing clean energy economy.”

It is expected that the permitting process will be quick for solar development within the zones since they are pre-approved sites. See more here.
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This article came from the California County News team, visit CaliforniaCountyNews for more stories like this and if your county has news to share, they'd love to post it.