Companies looking to make considerable advances in renewable energy and save money on electricity are directing their attention to solar energy-friendly states such as Arizona, which is the focus of a Bureau of Land Management plan for renewable energy development.
The draft plan for the Restoration Design Energy Project is a part of President Barack Obama's initiative to spark renewable energy development throughout the country. The initiative aims to identify areas across Arizona that are the most suitable for wind and solar power projects, focusing on areas that have been previously disturbed or have few natural and cultural resource conflicts.
“With some of the most significant solar resources in the world, Arizona has great potential to build a strong renewable energy economy,” Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said. “This blueprint for Arizona will help focus activity in the places where it makes the most sense to develop renewable energy, both for the companies and for the environment. Early, comprehensive analysis of things like resource potential, transmission, and environmental conflicts is simply good government.”
The areas that the project will explore will be landfills, brownfields, mines, isolated BLM parcels and Central Arizona Project canal rights-of-way.
The BLM recommended 237,100 acres of public land for the project. The recent release of the draft environmental impact statement opened a three-month public comment period, but the plan was already receiving praise from clean industry officials just days after it was announced.
“We’re obviously excited to see the BLM and Obama administration taking renewable energy development seriously, especially in a place where it makes a lot of sense like Arizona, where the sun shines every day," said Bret Fanshaw, spokesman for Environment Arizona. “We have the most potential for solar energy in terms of how intense the sun is out here and how many days the sun shines, and also, Arizona has a lot of land that can be developed. There’s a number of ways we can get there.”
Previously, public comments on the Restoration Design Energy Project were compiled in 2010, when the BLM held a series of meetings in order to determine what should be evaluated in the Environmental Impact Statement. The meetings resulted in more than 60 specific disturbed sites being discovered in 11 Arizona counties, which have been included in the analysis of Renewable Energy Development Areas.
Public meetings on the draft EIS will be held throughout Arizona during the public comment period, educating residents about the project and allowing them to comment on the draft EIS at the meetings.
The BLM manages the Arizona acreage that meets the criteria of the planned project, which would amend several BLM resource management plans in the state to provide directed, landscape-scale planning for future solar and wind projects, if approved.
The BLM also recently set aside nearly 21,000 acres of public land in Agua Caliente, near Yuma, Arizona, for use during the next two years, while it is studied as a potential site for solar energy through the Restoration Design Energy Project.
“We’re trying to identify the best places to develop renewable energy,” said Lane Cowger, BLM deputy project manager in Arizona. “There’s real potential we think in the Agua Caliente site. This is the BLM being proactive in identifying the best areas and development practices for renewable energy in Arizona.”
The BLM project promises to increase the amount of solar power available to Arizona residents, who have already demonstrated a remarkable commitment to the clean energy. Because its remarkable popularity meant the program was facing insufficient funds, an initiative providing subsidies for residents to install solar panels on their homes had to be scaled back in 2010, the Arizona Republic reported.
Despite that setback, residents and businesses in the state continue to take advantage of Arizona solar rebates and other incentive programs for installing solar power.
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Companies looking to make considerable advances in renewable energy and save money on electricity are directing their attention to solar energy-friendly states such as Arizona, which is the focus of a Bureau of Land Management plan for renewable energy development.
