The federal government will fund 17 projects across the U.S. to expand access to renewable energy on Native American reservations and in other rural areas, the Biden administration announced on February 27. The $366 million plan will pay for solar, battery storage, and hydropower projects in sparsely populated regions where electricity can be costly and unreliable. The money comes from a $1 trillion infrastructure law President Joe Biden signed in 2021. The projects span across 20 states and involve 30 tribes. They include $30 million to provide energy derived from plants to wildfire-prone communities in the Sierra Nevada in California, $32 million to build solar and hydropower for a Native American tribe in Washington state, and $27 million to construct a hydroelectric plant to serve a tribal village in Alaska.
A 1.5 MW solar array atop an industrial building in the Panorama City neighborhood of Los Angeles is the latest renewable energy project to take advantage of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s Feed-in Tariff (FiT) program. FiT has 155 projects with a combined capacity of 105.2 MW in service as of December 2023, according to the program dashboard. Another 114 projects representing 72 MW are planned or under development, leaving 57.7 MW in capacity for eligible applicants. The FiT program, launched in 2013, allows eligible commercial property owners to sell energy their systems generate back to LADWP.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Department of Energy (DOE) have launched an initiative aimed at helping farmers cut costs using underutilized renewable technologies, including smaller-scale wind projects. Through the Rural and Agricultural Income & Savings from Renewable Energy initiative, USDA is setting an initial goal of helping 400 individual farmers deploy smaller-scale wind projects using the agency’s Rural Energy for America Program.
Arevon Energy has secured more than $1 billion in aggregate financing commitments for its Eland 2 Solar-plus-Storage Project in Kern County, California. The 374 MW solar project coupled with 150 MW/600 MWh of energy storage is under early-stage construction and is anticipated to come online in early 2025.
The Placer County Board of Supervisors has approved a 1,170-acre solar panel facility that will provide power to Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) customers in west Placer County. The Country Acres Solar Project, sponsored by SMUD, will consist of raised photovoltaic solar panels over farmland that will also be used for agricultural purposes – sheep grazing for vegetation management and flower fields for pollinators.
EDF Renewables North America has announced a 20-year PPA with Southern California Public Power Authority (SCPPA) for a portion of its Bonanza Solar and Storage project located in Clark County, Nevada, which has a total 300 MW PV system and 195 MW 4-hour BESS. The company has guaranteed delivery to SCPPA’s participating members, Pasadena Water & Power and Azusa Light & Water, by the close of 2028.
The U.S. Navy has dusted off plans that have been shelved for the past 10 years, offering to lease 11,000 acres of farmland surrounding the NAS Lemoore base for energy production. This is not the first time the U.S. Navy has considered a solar project on their ag land here. A solar energy project at Naval Air Station Lemoore that was "first announced in 2015 is still moving forward," according to NAVFAC Southwest Energy, it was reported last year.
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