A coalition of five wind and solar energy trade groups said the size of the area set aside for development in the plan falls far short of what California and the United States will need to meet carbon reduction goals.
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The plan, dubbed the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP) is meant, in part, to ease the permitting process for renewable energy projects, while balancing them with conservation and recreation.
And while the decision by the Bureau of Land Management largely satisfied some stakeholders – particularly conservationists who have been battling to protect iconic species that inhabit this ecosystem like the desert tortoise and bighorn sheep – clean energy interests protested upon learning that only 388,000 acres would be explicitly set aside for renewable energy.
Interior Secretary Sally Jewell on Wednesday approved the first phase of a sweeping renewable energy and conservation plan for California’s deserts that is expected to shape large-scale wind and solar development for decades to come.
Last Friday, Jewell was in Boston, where she announced a strategic plan for the development of offshore wind energy, which will establish 86,000 megawatts on offshore sites by 2050.
The United States on Wednesday unveiled a long-awaited plan for desert renewable energy development that the solar and wind industries said unfairly favors land conservation and severely limits the ability to build projects critical to meeting the nation’s climate goals.
In a statement, Shannon Eddy, the executive director of the Large-Scale Solar Association, charged the plan “is a Model T in a Tesla world”.
The plan, developed in collaboration with state planners, also adds conservation protection to 4.2 million acres. By confining the renewable energy industry to regions that are less controversial, land managers said companies should have an easier time pushing projects through while facing less resistance from environmental groups.
“It makes development happen in the right way and in the right places”, Jewell said. “There’s a tremendous amount of solar energy potential in particular, but also wind, energy and geothermal that exist within these development focus areas”.
From their perspective, the DRECP will shut down development of renewable energy on millions of acres of federally managed lands in Southern California where it would be appropriate.
But Ileene Anderson, a scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity, called it “a compromise plan that provides more than enough land to reach California’s current renewable-energy goals and beyond, but it fails to adequately protect important wildlife habitat”.
Solar developers, however, had a different take on the announcement.
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“This was a missed opportunity”, Anderson said.
