- The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management said this week that it has submitted two energy transition projects proposed by public company NV Energy that would facilitate further renewable energy development and delivery in Nevada.
- The agency will begin an environmental review of the GreenLink North project, which will extend more than 450 miles to connect Las Vegas to Reno, and issue a draft environmental impact statement for the GreenLink West transportation project, which will cover 232 miles from Ely to Yerrington.
- The projects will advance the Biden administration’s goal of deploying 25 gigawatts of renewable energy to public lands and waters by 2025 and achieving a carbon-neutral energy sector by 2035.
Heavy power transmission lines at the powerful Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, located in California’s Mojave Desert at the base of Mount Clark and just south of this state community on Interstate 15, are seen on July 15, 2022 near Primm, Nevada. The Ivanpah system consists of three solar thermal power plants and 173,500 solar heads (mirrors) on an area of 3,500 acres and has a total capacity of 392 megawatts (MW).
George Rose | Getty Images News | Getty Images
The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management said this week that it has submitted two energy transition projects proposed by public company NV Energy that would facilitate further renewable energy development and delivery in Nevada.
The agency will begin an environmental review of the GreenLink North project, which will extend more than 450 miles to connect Las Vegas to Reno, and issue a draft environmental impact statement for the GreenLink West transportation project, which will cover 232 miles from Ely to Yerrington.
Once completed, the projects will connect eight gigawatts of clean energy to the Western electricity grid. The plans will advance the Biden administration’s goal of deploying 25 gigawatts of renewable energy to public lands and waters by 2025 and achieving a carbon-neutral energy sector by 2035.
The announcement comes as Congress debates federal energy permitting reforms, with Sen. Joe Manchin of Deutsche Welle Va. introduced measure earlier this month to speed up permitting for both fossil fuels and renewable energy projects.
Transmission projects include the expansion of high-voltage lines that transmit renewable energy to populated areas and will play an important role in accelerating the clean energy transition while meeting growing energy demand.
The BLM aims to finalize the proposed documentation and develop a decision registry for the Greenlink West project by late 2024. It will also release draft environmental planning documents for the Greenlink North project for public comment later this year.
“Our public lands have a critical role to play in the clean energy transition,” BLM Director Tracy Stone Manning said in a statement.
The agency said it has approved 35 clean energy projects over the past two years, including solar, geothermal and interconnection facilities, which are expected to generate 8,160 megawatts of electricity, or enough to power more than 2.6 million homes.
Some of the projects include the SunZia Southwest Transmission project in New Mexico and the approval for construction of the Sunlight Storage II battery storage system in California. The agency is also reviewing projects such as the Star Range Solar project in Utah and the Bonanza Solar project in Nevada.