Biden agency claims 'significant progress' toward permitting 25GW of renewables on US lands
To meet 2025 mandate, Interior Department says 11.2GW has green light and 33GW now under review
President Joe Biden’s administration claimed “significant progress” is being made toward permitting 25GW of renewable energy capacity on federal lands by 2025, which contrasts with recent setbacks for Atlantic offshore wind, according to the US Department of Interior (DoI).
The Energy Act of 2020 directs DoI to do this on lands it administers. For the purpose of geothermal, solar, transmission, and wind power development, these are within the portfolio of Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
Since Biden took office in January 2021, BLM has approved 46 projects - 16 solar, 10 geothermal, and 20 generation interconnection (gen-tie) transmission lines – that are expected to provide up to 11.2GW of electricity, enough to power more than 3.5 million homes, according to the agency.
Those facilities occupy about 35,000 acres (14,163 ha) of land, a small fraction of 244 million acres BLM oversees, with about 70% located in western states and 30% in Alaska.
BLM said it is now processing 66 grid-scale geothermal, solar, and wind projects and several gen-tie lines that if approved, have combined potential to add more than 33GW of renewable energy to the western electric grid.
Haaland provided an update on 15 of those projects in a speech before governors of 21 states west of the Mississippi River at the meeting in Wyoming.
She said both the 500MW Oberon PV project in California with up to 250MW of battery storage and 364MW Arlington PV facility with 242MW of battery storage in California on BLM lands are both fully operational. Oberon is owned by a subsidiary of Intersect Power and Arlington by NextEra Energy Resources.
Other announcements included progress milestones for two small gen-tie lines, a competitive lease sale for 45 geothermal parcels in Nevada, and opportunities for public comment on several projects in various permitting stages.
The administration has sought to highlight onshore renewable energy capacity additions and supply chain investment amid a wave of adverse media reports surrounding recent offshore wind project and power off-take contract cancellations in New England and New Jersey.