The Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced today the approval of a proposal to construct and operate the largest solar project in the United States.
U.S. Secretary of the Interior David L. Bernhardt signed the Record of Decision (ROD) for Solar Partners XI to construct a 690-MW solar PV project and ancillary facilities about 30 miles northeast of Las Vegas. The estimated $1 billion Gemini Solar Project could be the eighth-largest solar power facility in the world when finished.
“As our economy rebounds from the invisible enemy, President Trump is working to make the United States stronger than ever before. Our economic resurgence will rely on getting America back to work, and this project delivers on that objective,” said Secretary Bernhardt.
“This action is about getting Americans back to work, strengthening communities and promoting investment in American energy,” said Casey Hammond, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Exercising the Authority of the Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management. “Domestic energy production on Federal lands remains fundamental to our national security and the achievements of the Trump Administration.”
The project will facilitate critical infrastructure investments that will create jobs and economic activity and increase renewable energy, helping to meet Federal and state energy goals. It directly advances policy objectives described in President Trump’s Executive Order 13783, which promotes “clean and safe development of our Nation’s vast energy resources,” and Secretary’s Order 3355 prioritizing infrastructure projects and streamlining the environmental review process.
“Despite the challenges of the coronavirus, we’re pleased to see that Nevada will soon be home to one of the biggest solar projects in the world,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, President and CEO of SEIA. “The solar industry is resilient and a project like this one will bring jobs and private investment to the state when we need it most. We appreciate the work that the Trump Administration has done to make this historic project a reality.”
The on-site construction workforce is anticipated to average 500 to 700 construction workers, with a peak of up to 900 workers at any given time, supporting up to an additional 1,100 jobs in the local community and injecting an estimated $712.5 million into the economy in wages and total output during construction.
The Gemini solar project is expected to be constructed in two phases. The first phase of power could come online in 2021 with final completion as early as 2022. Federal revenues are expected to be more than $3 million annually to the U.S. Treasury.
The hybrid alternative specified in the ROD also includes a mowing method that will result in fewer impacts on native vegetation and wildlife, such as the desert tortoise. Extensive long-term monitoring will be required, in addition to possible adaptation of methods used to reduce potential impacts to desert tortoise.
The BLM and Solar Partners XI also developed measures to avoid, minimize and mitigate impacts to other resources including, but not limited to, visual resources, cultural and tribal resources, recreation access and air quality.
The Secretary signed the ROD after the BLM facilitated a comprehensive public process that included two public meetings during a 45-day public scoping period and two additional public meetings during the 90-day public comment period after the Draft Resource Management Plan Amendment (RMPA) and Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) were released. The BLM responded to all substantive comments that it received on the Draft RMPA/Draft EIS, as well as protests on the proposed RMPA and input it received from the Governor’s office. The BLM also conducted government-to-government consultations over several months, traveling to and meeting with the following Tribes: Moapa Band of Paiutes, Las Vegas Paiute Tribe, Fort Mojave Tribe, Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians, Chemehuevi Indian Tribe, Bishop Paiute Tribe, Colorado River Indian Tribes and the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe.
The ROD approves a right-of-way grant for the project and the associated amendment to the Las Vegas Resource Management Plan of 1998. The authorized solar facilities include 34.5 kilovolt overhead and underground collector lines, a 2-acre (0.8-hectare) operation and maintenance facility, three substations, internal access roads, access roads along generation tie-lines, a perimeter road, perimeter fencing, water storage tanks for fire protection, drainage control features, a potential on-site water well or a new water pipeline, and improvements to the existing NV Energy facilities to support interconnection. The project also includes a 380 MW solar-powered battery system able to store and deploy over 1,400 MWh which can be used when the power is needed most.
More information about the project can be found here.
News item from DOI
The major obstacle to roof top solar is there is no money in it for the politicians. Nevada is among the worst offenders, They had net metering until Warren Buffet bought NV Energy the politicians listened to the big bucks and net metering went away. Roof top solar puts energy $ back in the consumers pockets and big energy can’t abide that. The main pro solar groups in Nevada give lip service to roof top but are funded by Big energy. A few years ago there was a pro consumer bill written but the author refused to even bring it up for a committee vote, it died on his desk. I believe it was planned that way. How many more boondoggles like State Line or Crescent Dunes will it take before the citizens wake up, I am not hopeful.
David,
You can pay for solar panels on your roof as I have. I only pay $15 a month to be connected to the grid and the difference from my original power bill will pay off the panels in 15 years total, free power for me after that. People need to put their money where their mouth is.
As for the Federal investment, they are not spending a dime on this, from what I read. They are leasing the land to the solar company, so actually making money on it rather than having that land just sit there. This is a win win for everyone and anyone that says otherwise is simply wrong and has not done a second of research.
Batteries are great but they still have a long way to go. 1400 MWh is a gigantic battery. But it can keep up with my nuclear power plant for, like, 45 minutes. You’d need to build 32 of these things to actually replace a two-unit, 1800 MW power plant.
The “other” thing you can do is place a very large say 1GWh energy storage system right off of the nuclear plant output and store energy that would be considered “overgeneration” and allow the plant to run at its most efficient power generation point 24/7. Actually a “battery” used as a buss to feed several inverters to generate power are much faster than your nuclear plant. Just how far can you actually ramp down a nuclear plant and what does it actually cost in overall O&M when you run the plant in such a manner? Can your nuclear plant switch power through a 18 pulse switch and functionally remove noise off of the grid and help smooth and regulate the grid as it adjusts generated power impedance into the grid, can your nuclear plant do that? I’m thinking you’ve been spoiled, run your nuclear plant and let everyone else ramp around your baseload supply, there’s a cheaper technology and opportunity available today, you’ll see, sooner or later.
If you want to consider energy politics and economics, when you get down to it that only matters in deregulated states where you have Public Utility Commissions known as PUC’s or RTO’s (Regional Transmission Organizations), where transmission and distribution assets are forced into two separate companies. Which means in other words a nuclear plant can no longer control the distribution mix of a region after we deregulated the grid. You would need to build 7,237 of these Gemini Projects to equal the amount of power produced by our current nuclear reactors, and it would take up 51 million acres of land when a nuclear plant takes up one square mile. Solar panels are net negative energies with only a 20% capacity. The closest energy source that gets anywhere close to nuclear is coal. By far and none there is still nothing that beats the efficiency and capacity of the atom, and you can look at the RTO map to find out why nuclear plants are closing down. It really is all about energy politics.
You’re comparing apples to watermelons! A nuke is a base load plant while a battery is a peaking “plant”. Sure it also provides power after dark, but the main function is grid stability including replacing gas peakers providing spinning reserve.
This must be the replacement of the Reid Gardner coal fired plant. This time around, one can store over generation for later use and use the energy storage as spinning reserve if and when the grid demands calls for more generation online to meet loads.
“The hybrid alternative specified in the ROD also includes a mowing method that will result in fewer impacts on native vegetation and wildlife, such as the desert tortoise. Extensive long-term monitoring will be required, in addition to possible adaptation of methods used to reduce potential impacts to desert tortoise.”
Mowing is not the major problem to the survival of the desert tortoise. If one will (just) look around, they will see crows flying around the desolate land. That’s because at certain times of the year, desert tortoises hatch and begin their journey out into the wilds. The crows know this also, thin out the crow population, bring back the population of the tortoise, probably the quail and dove also. One species will have to decline, so the other can reclaim its territory. On the regulatory side of things, thin out the population of biologists and other such types, their crushing student loan debt is destroying the adoption of alternative energy resources on desolate lands that can be used for public good.
Using sheep or goats for weed control instead of mowers could be a viable option. I have clients who provide this service. The sheep and goat manure also has value and can be collected and converted into soil enhancement products.
Goats are not a viable option as they have been prone to damaging wires and even causing physical damage to the structures of the array by jumping onto the panels themselves. Sheep have shown to be more docile and less inclined to cause damage.
Personally I am against these giant solar projects that eat up our public lands. I’m not impressed. All the investment of government funds that this will require will no doubt help in enriching mega-companies. Why not invest in putting solar cells on every useable rooftop in America and sell the excess power back to utility companies. Keep it cheap for the public to power their homes instead of supporting our governments god awful emphasis on keeping the corporate wealthy in charge. Our tax money and abuse of public lands should not be condoned. With creativity and less greed we have a better chance of keeping earth livable.
Like you said, one could take something like 20,000 roofs and put a 9kWp solar PV system on each roof with a smart ESS and do a better job of powering one’s home for most of the day. I’m sure in this case the Moapa Indian tribe will enjoy the monies from the project on their “Sovereign Indian Nation”. When all is said and done, I’d rather rely on MY system first and the utility’s system last, backup is good. With solar PV panel prices still going down in cost per watt one can get a 14.5kWp to 16kWp solar PV array and energy storage installed for around $48K, with smart energy storage that allows arbitrage and energy shifting for self consumption of your own solar PV generated product. There’s still a 26% ITC this year and a 22% ITC next year that would bring that cost down to $35.5K this year and $37.5 next year. You could pay that system off in 10 to 12 years. IF you spend that $35K to $48K on a new car, it will never pay for itself in energy savings, until you have to buy another car at 10 to 12 years down the road. Just sayin’ people have been institutionalized into a position where their priorities are screwed up. New car, very important, solar PV and self consumption a “luxury”, only for rich people. It seems like “no one” researches, asks or dares pundit, just how “rich” does one have to be?