- Grants permission for the construction of a 500 MW Solar project
- PV farm will have the capacity to generate electricity for approximately 146,000 homes
The US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has issued a notice to proceed, giving authority to commence the construction of the 500MW Oberon Solar project on public lands. The lands are in the desert region of California’s Riverside County. The project’s final approval was given six months after the government agency gave the green light to the scheme. The scheme will be located on about 2,600 acres of BLM-managed lands near Desert Center.
Upon commencement of operations, the Oberon photovoltaic (PV) farm will have the capacity to generate electricity for approximately 146,000 homes. Based on the plan, the facility will be coupled with a 200MW battery storage facility.
Oberon Solar makes one of the three PV schemes given permission under BLM’s Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan. Others are Clearway Energy Group LLC’s 265MW Arica and 200MW Victory Pass solar projects in eastern Riverside County. The two schemes will be integrated with 400MW of total battery storage capacity. They got their final approval in June, and therefore construction can begin.
The BLM noted it is currently processing 64 utility-scale clean energy projects on public lands in the western US that could add more than 41,000MW of renewable energy to the western electric grid.