Utility-Scale Solar on BLM Desert Lands Will Generate Substantial Income for Taxpayers
Jul 8th, 2010 Originally Posted by Susan Kraemer
Desert lands in solar-rich Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah will not just supply our nation with abundant, clean, safe, fuel-free solar power – but will also generate very good financial returns for the benefit of the public good nationwide, under under a new fee schedule the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) introduced last month for solar developers.
Energy Prospects reports that a megawatt-capacity fee (based on the productivity of the solar technologies chosen) and annual rents per acre will be charged by the BLM for the next 50 years or more, generating not just abundant clean sunshine-powered energy, but also a very substantial annual income from desert lands.
The base rents range from just under $16 an acre to more than $300 an acre, payable annually. It takes thousands of acres to make solar power, so these will really add up. The 200 applications currently awaiting approvals on BLM land range from 5,000 acre projects up to ones that are up to 32,000 acres in size.
One 4,000 acre solar installation in Clark County, supplying Las Vegas, would bring in annual rent of $753,360. The 1,000 MW Solar Millennium parabolic-trough solar thermal project in Blythe, near Los Angeles (if it can ever get through the interminable elaborate environmental reviews!) would pay $9.5 million every year in both per-MW fees and rents.
The most expensive land for the base rent is closer to big cities in RES states, and the most expensive MW fees are for those solar technologies that incorporate night-time storage. As we add more renewables, energy storage is becoming a requirement in some states, like California. With that double whammy, near Los Angeles is expensive. (more…)