Government study puts Nevada solar business on hold

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How do solar power plant developments affect public lands?That's what the federal government is hoping to find out, as it opens a sweeping study.As the Bureau of Land Management -- which controls 67 percent of Nevada land, including many rural areas where solar arrays would be located -- completes a lengthy study, the agency will impose a moratorium on new applications to put solar panels on federal land. Developers will have to wait at least 22 months -- until at least spring 2010 -- for the results of the study.The moratorium is needed because the agency has a backlog of pending applications, and many of the requests are highly complicated."That immediately is going to slow the momentum of a growing economy of solar business in the state of Nevada," said Chris Brooks, director of the renewable energy division of Bombard Electric, a southern Nevada commercial electric contractor that installed solar panels at Nellis Air Force Base. "Twenty-two months will drive businesses out of existence."In Nevada, 87 percent of the state is federally controlled.Brooks and other solar energy insiders said the moratorium, especially coupled with uncertainty in Congress over long-term tax credits for solar development, would discourage solar manufacturers from locating in the Southwest.The agency has received 125 solar plant applications, the oldest of which was filed more than three years ago, according to Katherine Gensler, manager of regulatory and legislative affairs with the Solar Energy Industries Association.Gensler and Linda Resseguie of the mining bureau said delays on some of those applications are due to developers new to the solar industry not meeting bureau deadlines.The agency is so backed up with pending applications that it couldn't have begun analyzing new requests before the study is completed anyway, Gensler said.Still, the moratorium has the industry buzzing.Many developers expressed concern over the moratorium at a meeting Monday in Riverside, Calif., where the bureau took public comment on the scope of the study, Resseguie said.Gilbert Cohen, vice president of engineering and operations for Acciona Solar Power, the company that built a large solar plant in Boulder City, Nev., said the moratorium would hurt his company. The moratorium could keep Acciona from filing applications for at least two large solar projects in Southern Nevada."It's the cost of not doing business," he said.Resseguie said the agency might hold competitive auctions for parcels with multiple solar applications.In the meantime, the freeze could place a dollar value on applications filed, which may drive partnerships and deal-making in the industry, Resseguie said.The limited number of active applications moving through the bureau queue could drive up prices, said Tom Fair, renewable energy executive for Sierra Pacific Resources, Nevada Power's parent company. He called the 125 existing applications "a bit of a land rush."Another concern is that over the course of the 22-month moratorium, the fast-moving solar industry may develop new technologies that won't be analyzed by the bureau in its study, he said.(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)