Bureau of Land Management approves 300MW of Californian storage

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), part of the US Department of the Interior, has issued a Notice to Proceed with construction of the 300MW Sunlight Storage II Battery Energy Storage System project in Riverside County in California, which will  increase energy storage capacity for the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm.

The project - which is owned by NextEra Energy, Inc., NextEra Energy Partners, Global Infrastructure Partners, Gulf Pacific Power, and Sumitomo Corporation of America - advances the Biden-Harris administration’s efforts to develop clean energy on public lands.

The project, which would sit entirely within the existing fence line of the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm, would increase the project’s total storage capacity to 530 megawatts once completed.

In 2021, the BLM approved construction of the Desert Sunlight Battery Energy Storage System within the Desert Sunlight Solar facilities, both of which are now fully operational and currently provide 550 megawatts of electricity and 230 megawatts of energy storage capacity to the state power grid.

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