The Rush for Gigawatts in the Desert Explodes

Although the economy is in the dumps, there’s been a 78% jump in applications to build solar projects on BLM land in the last six months.
by: Ucilia Wang, Greentechmedia.com

There might be a credit crunch, but that’s not stopping solar companies from trying to lay claim to millions of acres of desert real estate.

The federal Bureau of Land Management has seen a 78 percent jump in the number of solar energy project applications since it reversed a controversial decision last July and started to accept applications again.

The number of applications has risen to 223 from 125. The applicants are vying to build solar power plants that are 10 megawatts or larger in California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado, according to the BLM data provided by Andrew Malone in the agency’s public affairs office.

In all, these projects would occupy 2.3 million acres. It’s difficult to say what the total power generation capacity that has been proposed is since some developers have yet to specify that information on their applications. Many of the proposals call for building projects with hundreds of megawatts of generation capacities.

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