Two massive vast farms are now being planned to be set up in the United States. The first one will be set up across 3,500 acres (~5 ½ square miles) near the now-decommissioned nuclear plant, Duane Arnold Energy Center, in Palo, Iowa. Duane Arnold is Iowa’s only nuclear power plant, abandoned in Oct. 2020 following damages suffered to its two cooling towers the previous August. At the time, it was producing 615 MW of steady power.
Owner of the solar firm NextEra Energy of Florida, said the solar unit is expected to produce up to 690 megawatts of solar energy. “We’re also hoping to accompany that solar project with up to 60 megawatts of AC-coupled batteries,” Project Manager Kimberly Dickey said, The Gazette reported. The plant is scheduled to go into operation in 2023 and would require $700 million capital investment, generating only 300 jobs during the construction period.
The second monstrosity is scheduled for Southern California, where, the E&E News site reported, the proposed Oberon solar project would cover about 4,700 acres (~7.3 square miles) of federal land in Riverside, inside the boundaries of the sprawling Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP). Ownership and use of this lease is overseen by the Bureau of Land Management’s Palm Springs/South Coast Field Office. The project is now under study, and no firm date of its construction has been announced.
The Oberon Solar Project would be a photovoltaic power plant and have the capacity to produce up to 500 megawatts of electricity. “The planned EA [environmental assessment] for the Oberon solar project dovetails with Biden administration plans to follow the Obama-era blueprint of using federal lands to promote commercial-scale renewable energy projects, and assist in the administration’s overall goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change,” E&E News wrote.
