The US could potentially deploy 51GW to 84GW of renewable energy projects on federal lands by 2035, according to a new report from the Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

The new capacity could supply 10 percent of the clean energy required for the country to reach net zero emissions.

The projections were based on a high-resolution geospatial model that calculated the technical potential or maximum amount of available resources based on the amount of federal land administered across the US, the suitability of the land for energy development, and the availability of energy resources.

To ensure realistic assumptions, NREL sought expertise from five federal agencies and land administrators: the Bureau of Land Management, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the US Forest Service, the US Department of Defense (DoD), and DOE.

The report found that while federal lands have a significant amount of renewable potential – a total technical capacity of 7.7TW – only a small portion would need to be developed to meet the 10 percent target.

NREL found federal lands have technical potential for 5,750GW of utility-scale solar, 875GW of wind, 130GW of hydrothermal, and 975GW of enhanced geothermal. However, current deployments are highly limited, with only four percent of US utility-scale renewable capacity found on federal lands compared to 12 percent of oil drilling sites.

When applying stricter siting constraints, the potential drops to 1,750GW for solar PV and just 70GW for wind. Despite this, only a fraction of the capacity would be required to meet the central projections found in the report. This would require under 2 million acres, less than 0.5 percent of all federal lands, and only 5 percent of the total area available for development. Of this, less than 815,000 acres – 0.2 percent of federal lands – would face permanent disturbance.

Earlier this week, outgoing President Joe Biden announced an executive order requiring land owned by the DoD and DOE to be made available for lease to developers for gigawatt-scale AI data center campuses and clean energy projects. The order also includes requirements to improve transmission networks around federal land for these sites.

Data centers are some of the largest users of renewable energy in the US. However, over the past 12 months, the sector has expressed concern that renewable capacity in the US is not being scaled fast enough to meet their ever-increasing power demands.

In addition, concerns over transmission infrastructure and the long lead time for renewables to connect to the grid have led data centers to seek behind-the-meter agreements with natural gas and nuclear energy providers to shore up their energy supply requirements.

Despite this, data center providers have continued to sign renewable energy contracts across the US. In the last two weeks alone, Meta and Google have signed long-term renewable Power Purchase Agreements.

https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/nrel-us-could-deploy-between-51gw-to-84gw-of-renewables-on-federal-land-by-2030/