Feds Approve Another Desert Solar Energy Project in California

On October 26th, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar approved the $6 billion Blythe Solar Project to be built across more than 7,000 acres in California’s desert. Around the same time, approval came through for the Ivanpah Solar Project, which will produce enough energy to power the equivalent of 140,000 average American homes each year. The latest approval came yesterday for the 250-megawatt (MW) Genesis Solar Energy Project, which will be built on desert land in southeastern California — a mere 25 miles of the Blythe solar project site. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and California Energy Commission approved the project in September, leaving Federal approval as the final barrier standing in the way of construction. Now that the barrier has been broken, the project is expected to be completed in late 2012 or early in the 2013 calendar year. Florida-based NextEra Energy Resources is developing the project and expects it to create 1,100 new jobs and power as many as 188,000 average American homes each year. Thirty percent of the $300 million tab to construct the project will come from federal stimulus funds. Genesis will be built on public land.