It will be installed in Blythe, a village in the Californian desert as anonymous as its neighbor Mesa Verde is famous for having served as the setting for the film “Once upon a time there was a revolution”. This time, no gold in bars, but gold in rays. The Biden administration announced Monday that it had given its approval to a major solar power plant project in the California desert, which will be able to supply electricity to nearly 88,000 homes.
The Crimson Solar Project will be located on more than 800 ha of federal land west of Blythe in southern California where the sun hits more than 320 days a year. It is being developed by the firm Canadian Solar and will supply electricity to the Californian utility Southern California Edison.
As part of his big green plan to fight global warming, Joe Biden has pledged to put public lands at the service of renewable energies, and thus reduce American dependence on fossil fuels. But the Crimson Solar project is not the immediate result of this desire: the land was designated in 2010 by the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan, an agreement between the State of California and the Obama administration that reserved areas for wind and solar projects. Its construction was due to start in 2014 but the bankruptcy of its original operator froze everything.
Crimson Solar will create 650 construction jobs and cost $ 550 million. Once in service, it will only take 10 permanent and 40 seasonal jobs to operate and maintain the plant for thirty years. California already produces 40% of America’s photovoltaic energy.
–
