Solar Power Plants in The Mojave Desert - Land Use Issues

Land Use Issues

Solar power plants require large amounts of land. According to the Bureau of Land Management, there are twenty proposals to use in total about 180 square miles of public land in California. If all twenty proposed projects were built, they would total 7,387 megawatts. The requirement for so much land has spurred efforts to encourage solar facilities to be built on already-disturbed lands, and the Department of Interior identified Solar Energy Zones that it judges to contain lower value habitat where solar development would have less of an impact on ecosystems. Sensitive wildlife impacted by large solar facility plans include the desert tortoise, Mohave Ground Squirrel, Mojave fringe-toed lizard, and desert bighorn sheep.

Some of the land in the eastern portion of the Mojave Desert is to be preserved, but the solar industry has mainly expressed interest in areas of the western desert, "where the sun burns hotter and there is easier access to transmission lines", said Kenn J. Arnecke of FPL Energy, a sentiment shared by many executives in the industry.