U.S. Solar Energy, Seeing the Cup as Half-Full

On June 29, 2009, a joint announcement by the U.S. Department of Energy, or DOE, and the U.S. Department of the Interior, under Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, had Salazar and Senator Harry Reid (D-NV, and Senate Majority Leader) announcing that 24 tracts of Bureau of Land Management-administered land in six western states would be evaluated for their solar potential as part of a solar initiative dubbed the Solar Energy Study Areas.

When the evaluation was completed, the land would be leased for large-scale solar energy production. The announcement was fulfillment of a clause in the 2005 Energy Policy Act, in which Congress gave the Interior Department until 2015 to approve 10,000 megawatts of solar energy on public lands.

In 2009, Salazar and Reid described the initiative as “fast tracking” solar energy development on Western lands. Now, more than a year later, the AP reports that – instead of the initiative spurring development – the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is seeing a case of lands being lease-bound but still undeveloped, with the leases stalling further U.S. solar energy build out.

To make its point, the AP cites investment group Goldman Sachs and its subsidiaries (among them Cogentrix Solar Services, LLC) filing about 16 percent of the 354 lease applications registered with the BLM. Cogentrix reportedly holds leases on 120,000 acres, or an area about the size of New Mexico.

Even after the withdrawal of a number of applications – some as a result of Senator Dianne Feinstein’s (D-CA) advocacy on behalf of the almost unknown and clearly vulnerable desert tortoise, others because concentrating solar power (CSP) uses untoward amounts of limited Western water – the BLM reportedly still has 123 active applications on the books.

As a Huffington Post op-ed notes, one of the lease holders, BrightSource Renewables, is really nothing but a venture capital (VC) firm, and the lease, a case of land speculation. While we admire the AP’s uncanny ability to pull critical news out of a hat, it seems that the article unfairly characterizes the prospects and development of solar energy in the Western U.S.

I prefer to quote from an August 27, 2010 report by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), which shows that, since 2005, 158 megawatts of Western solar have come on line, 80 MW as concentrating solar power stations, or CSP. These companies involved in these CSP projects are: Abengoa, 1 MW; Acciona, 64 MW; Ausra, 5 MW; eSolar, 5MW; Solargenix, 1 MW; Sopogy, 2 MW, and: Tessera, 2 MW.

Another 79 MW comprises solar photovoltaic (PV) installations: APS, 4 MW; Cleantech America, 5 MW; enXco, 1 MW; First Solar, 21 MW; First Solar/Sempra (two locations), 18 MW; Global Solar, 5 MW; MMA Renewable, 14 MW; Solon, 2 MW; SunEdison, 8MW; Three Phases, Green Rock, 1 MW.

Also under construction are utility-scale CSP and PV projects in Nevada (American Capital Energy, 20 MW); New Mexico (First Solar, 30 MW); Texas (juwi, 14 MW), and; Colorado (SunPower, 17 MW).

And under development are 9,842 MW of CSP projects (including PV) all across the American Southwest, many on private land, but a sufficient number of public ventures – like Acciona’s Fort Irwin project, at 980 MW, that make up for the dearth of BLM engagement.

Another 13,156MW of traditional solar PV (excluding concentrating PV) is under development everywhere across the nation, from New Jersey to California.

Rather than seeing the cup as half empty, we who advocate solar energy (and clean energy technologies in general) might be better off seeing it as half full. After all, perception conditions existence, and the universe is a replicated holographic fractal that looks exactly the way we expect it to look.

Image credit: Let Ideas Compete via Flickr

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