U.S. Approves 1,100 Megawatts of Renewable Energy Projects

Andrew Herndon, Bloomberg
March 14, 2013 | 3 Comments

The U.S. approved three renewable- energy projects to be built on federal land in California and Nevada.

The two solar farms and one wind project are expected to total 1,100 megawatts of capacity, enough to power more than 340,000 homes, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said today at a press conference in San Francisco.

The U.S. doubled its use of renewable energy during the past four years and these projects are part of the Obama administration’s strategy of promoting wider use of solar, wind and geothermal energy on federal lands, he said. The solar farms are in one of 17 zones approved by the Interior Department last year to accelerate the approval process.

“They are the blueprint, the bible, if you will, of where solar energy will go on public lands in the years ahead,” Salazar said.

The 750-megawatt McCoy Solar Energy Project, owned by NextEra Energy Inc., and Electricite de France SA’s 150-megawatt Desert Harvest plant will use photovoltaic technology and are in Riverside County, in Southern California.

Duke Energy Corp.’s 200-megawatt Searchlight Wind Energy Project is in Clark County, Nevada.

Edison International’s Southern California Edison utility received approval from state regulators last year to buy power under a 20-year contract from McCoy’s first 250-megawatt phase, which is expected to start producing power in late 2016.

EDF and Duke haven’t announced power-purchase agreements and none of the three companies have named suppliers.

The Interior Department has approved 37 utility-scale clean energy projects on federal land since 2009 that may power more than 3.8 million homes, and it plans to complete review of 20 more this year and next, the agency said today in a statement.

Lead image: Approved via Shutterstock

3 Comments

Geoff Thomas
March 17, 2013

Nick, 20% seems a bit low, Windfarms usually try for 40%, although I have heard of some using lower wind regimes than that, and Solar panels on trackers will be getting better than 20% depending on where they are being installed.
Whatever, as the electricity network has to supply the peak, much of the generating stations don't get much better than 20%, particularly with Nuclear input as Nuclear demands 100%, - too expensive otherwise and doesn't ramp up and down very well.
Solar and Wind are often quite complementary, and with some Tidal, Geothermal etc and some storage, a very good contribution can occur.

JOHNSON JEFFERY
March 16, 2013

The total installed capacity of PV is 10 GW. 1 GW is a lot of power. 1 GW is more power than 65% of all other countries. For example, mexico's entire Grid is only 53 GW, while other countries in Latin America is less than 1 GW. The US should be using more renewables -- they represent 5% of the world's pollution but consume 27% of the world's energy and is the number 1 producer of greenhouse gases and toxic wastes

Nick Cook
March 16, 2013

1.1GW sounds a lot, but being combined wind and solar I doubt if the average generation will reach 20% (220MW) of the installed capacity.

This represents only about 0.5% of average UK power demand so I don't think this will make a huge dent in US fossil emmissions.