California and Interior expand renewable energy agreement PDF Print E-mail
Written by Wild Nevada   
Wednesday, 25 January 2012 09:49
Ivanpah_renderingCalifornia Gov. Jerry Brown and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar have agreed to expand a partnership that has expedited more than a dozen utility-scale solar energy projects in the Golden State in the last two years.

The deal ensures that transmission line projects get the same expedited treatment as all the solar projects have received, and is seen as a key element in California’s effort to independently meet its goal of having 33 percent of its energy needs coming from clean power by 2020.

It’s unclear how this new agreement, under which the Renewable Energy Policy Group hustles renewable energy projects through California’s labyrinthine environmental reviews, will affect projects in Nevada. Projects need purchase power agreements from utilities in order to secure other development financing, and California was seen as a prime market since its needs for clean energy were so great.

Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, whose state also has an agreement with the Interior to collaborate on renewable energy projects, has made it no secret that he’d like to see Nevada power plants exporting electricity to California.

A big part of the California-Interior agreement is the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan, which is designed to provide “binding, long-term endangered species permit assurances” at the same time it shepherding renewable energy projects to future homes in the Mojave and Colorado deserts of California.
A rendering of how heliostats will look at the Ivanpah Solar Electric
Generating System in the California desert. According to developer BrightSource, the technology design "allows the solar
field to coexist with existing vegetation."
 

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