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Hecate Energy is working on a 1 GW solar facility in Hanford, a former nuclear weapons manufacturing site, while NextEra is in talks to build solar power at a nuclear storage facility in New Mexico. Both companies are looking to develop solar projects on government lands that were once and are still used for nuclear weapons and energy infrastructure.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced that NextEra will enter into negotiations with the department to lease property at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) to build at least a 150 MWac solar facility and a 100 MW energy storage facility. The project, located 26 miles southeast of Carlsbad, New Mexico, is the second publicly announced by the federal government as part of the Cleanup to Clean Energy initiative.
The WIPP is located on a 50-square-mile (129.4-square-km) site. DOE has provided NextEra with guidance on where to locate the solar plant within the site, coordinating with various federal safety agencies.
Few additional details describe the solar and energy storage project, which is understandable, given the national security sensitivity of the location. However, the documents hint at the complexity of managing the facility, citing land management requirements that include coordinating efforts between the DOE, a Joint Powers Agreement, the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management, and various federal groups focused on security and nuclear energy.
A company like NextEra is particularly well suited for this type of site, as it owns and operates multiple nuclear facilities across the country and likely employs many people with the necessary security clearances.
In July, the DOE entered into similar negotiations with Hecate Energy to build a 1 GW solar power plant, along with an undisclosed amount of energy storage, at the Hanford site in Washington. Hanford is also home to a nuclear facility, the 1.23 GW Columbia Generating Station, which has been operational since August 1, 1972.
Solar installation is being considered for the green zones on the map below, with a possible interconnection at the Ache substation. The area has a total of 32 square km.
The Hanford site was created during World War II as a nuclear weapons production facility. Plutonium was produced there for decades and is now undergoing cleanup work. The 560-square-mile site is half the size of Rhode Island and is located in a semi-arid, desert region east of the Rocky Mountains in Washington.
According to the DOE, WIPP is the nation’s only repository for transuranic materials generated by atomic defense activities. The site is described as a “deep geologic repository authorized to store radioactive waste for 10,000 years” within a 250-million-year-old salt bed, deliberately located far from population centers. The waste is stored 60 meters below the surface within the salt bed, which is about 60 meters thick.
In total, DOE has identified more than 110 square miles of land for potential development at five initial sites: Hanford, WIPP, the Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho Falls, Idaho, the Nevada National Security Site in Nye County, Nevada, and the Savannah River Site in Aiken, South Carolina. |
