"The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on Wednesday announced an update to its 2012 plan for solar power development in the western U.S., adding five states to the original six.
The original plan identified prime areas for solar development in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah. The BLM on Wednesday updated and finetuned its analyses and added Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming to the plan.
The Interior Department used $4.3 million in Inflation Reduction Act funds for the update. The BLM projected about 700,000 acres of public lands will be necessary to meet the U.S.’s expected renewable energy needs, while the preferred BLM alternative of the six outlined in the updated plan would free up about 22 million acres.
Meanwhile, the BLM is also processing some 67 onshore renewable energy projects on public lands across the west, a combination of wind, solar and geothermal that together could potentially add nearly 37 gigawatts to the grid."
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