Three new solar projects north of Las Vegas on fast track

Three new utility-scale solar power arrays are a step closer to construction just north of the Las Vegas Valley under a new federal initiative aimed at fast-tracking renewable energy development on public land.

On Monday, federal regulators gathered in Las Vegas to announce the release of environmental assessments for the three projects, which could receive final approval by spring 2015 and begin delivering power by 2016.

Deputy Interior Secretary Michael Connor said such environmental reviews used to take one to two years, but these assessments were finished in about six months, thanks in part to a new process of pre-screening tracts of federal land deemed suitable for development and designating those areas as solar energy zones.

The three solar projects by three different developers are expected to generate a combined 480 megawatts of electricity, enough to power roughly 120,000 homes. If permitted for construction, the solar arrays would cover almost 3,100 acres of federal land just northwest of where U.S. Highway 93 splits from Interstate 15 near Apex.

The land — surrounded by natural-gas-fueled power plants, transmission lines and one of the nation’s largest municipal garbage dumps — is far from scenic, federal officials said, but it’s a perfectly appropriate place to put up solar panels.

“It has high resource value and low resource conflicts,” said Amy Lueders, state director for the BLM in Nevada. “It has everything you want, and it doesn’t have the things you don’t want.”

The BLM designated the area as the Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone, one of five such zones in Southern Nevada and 19 nationwide covering almost 300,000 acres.

On June 30, the bureau held its first-ever auction of solar development rights, generating $5.8 million from the three top bidders: First Solar, NV Energy and Invenergy.

First Solar plans to generate about 200 megawatts of solar power on 1,700 acres. NV Energy’s plant would generate 150 megawatts on 660 acres, while Invenergy’s would generate 130 megawatts on 715 acres.

Connor said it took cooperation among federal, state and local officials to get these projects from auction to environmental assessment so quickly.

“These are government entities; they don’t always work together,” he said. “But in Nevada they certainly do, and it’s to the benefit of everyone.”

Public comment on the three environmental assessments will be accepted through Jan. 8. The documents will be available online starting Tuesday at on.doi.gov/1scQTb6 (for Invenergy), on.doi.gov/1vwugyD (for First Solar) and on.doi.gov/1w72dJJ (for NV Energy).

The BLM will host a public open house on the proposals from 6-8 p.m. Wednesday at the agency’s Las Vegas field office at 4701 N. Torrey Pines Drive, near Rancho Drive and Lone Mountain Road.

For more information, contact Greg Helseth, BLM’s renewable energy project manager in Las Vegas, at 702-515-5173 or ghelseth@blm.gov.

Since 2009, the Department of Interior has approved 52 solar, wind and geothermal projects on public lands, including associated transmission equipment to connect to established power grids. Connor said these projects could produce nearly 14,000 megawatts of capacity, “enough energy to power every home in Nevada four times over.”

Contact Henry Brean at hbrean@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350. Follow @RefriedBrean on Twitter.