June 30, 2008—The US Department of Energy (DOE) recently announced it is working with the Western Governors’ Association (WGA) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to expedite renewable energy projects.
DOE will work with the Western Governors’ Association (WGA) to identify areas in the West with substantial renewable energy resources and to expedite the development and delivery of that energy to meet regional energy needs. DOE plans to contribute up to $2.3 million over the next 3 years to the Western Renewable Energy Zones (WREZ) project, which was launched by WGA and DOE.
DOE will help to identify the WREZs, develop regional transmission plans to enhance access to the WREZs, create a transparent process to bring together utilities and the companies developing those renewable energy resources, and encourage interstate cooperation to address permitting and cost issues with transmission lines that cross state lines.
Participating in the project are 11 western states, two Canadian provinces, and areas in Mexico that are part of the Western Interconnection, the massive electrical grid that supplies electricity to most of the West.
DOE is also working with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to assess the impacts associated with solar energy development on BLM-managed public lands in six western states. The joint Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) will assess the environmental, social, and economic impacts from solar energy projects located in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah.
The joint PEIS will also evaluate a number of alternative management strategies to determine which presents the best management approach for the agencies to adopt in terms of mitigating potential impacts and facilitating solar energy development while carrying out their respective missions. The measures adopted as a result of this PEIS are intended to provide consistency and certainty for solar energy development and will help expedite environmental analysis for site-specific projects in the future.
