The Biden administration has finalized a plan to significantly expand access to federal lands for solar energy development. Specifically, it is opening up over 30 million acres across the Western U.S. for utility-scale solar farms.
This builds upon an existing initiative, the Western Solar Plan, which had already approved 22 million acres for solar. The new expansion aims to locate solar farms closer to existing transmission lines and on previously disturbed lands, while avoiding sensitive environmental areas.
Expanding solar power on federal lands could greatly increase clean energy generation capacity and help reduce emissions from fossil fuels like coal and gas. It also provides an opportunity to repurpose former mining sites known as “brownfields” for solar farms.
While environmental and industry groups generally support broader access to public lands for renewables, some say even more acreage should be opened up given that fossil fuels still have access to over 80 million acres of federal lands.
Source: TCD
