The US Ministry of the Interior (DOI) recently announced that a solar+energy storage project deployed by Nextera Energy in Cedar, California has achieved commercial operations.
The solar+storage project called "Blythe" is deployed on a public land managed by the US Land Administration (BLM), including a 485MW solar power field and a 387MW battery energy storage system.
The solar power field in this project is divided into four stages. The first stage of 110MW solar power field has been operated in January 2015. In the last three stages, 125MW solar power generation facilities were deployed, and the supporting battery energy storage system was approved to be deployed in 2020.
This is a solar+energy storage project that has been opened in California. The previously opened solar energy+energy storage project was a 475MW solar energy+energy storage project operated by French energy developer EDF in August this year.
The U.S. Land Administration also approves 500MW Oberon solar+energy storage projects expected to be put into operation in 2023.
The project is approved based on the California Desert Renewable Energy Protection Plan (DRECP). The plan determines the renewable energy project suitable for the scale of public utilities in the desert area of Southeast California, covering 10.8 million acres of public land.
At present, the U.S. Land Administration is managing and handling 64 solar, wind power and geothermal projects on public land in the western region of the country, with a total installed capacity of more than 41GW.
