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Feds finalize plan to expand solar energy in Wyoming

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2024-12-22 17:00:22

“I am impressed at the quality and depth of every WyoFile story I have read and would like to support this journalism.”

The Interior Department on Friday finalized its updated Western Solar Plan, potentially opening 31.7 million acres of federal public lands in the West to industrial solar energy development, including some 3.8 million acres in Wyoming.

The decision comes just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, and just hours before a potential federal government shutdown.

The Wyoming acreage considered suitable for solar energy represents about 20% of land overseen by the Bureau of Land Management in the state, according to the BLM. Suitable areas in Wyoming exclude sage grouse core areas and avoid ungulate migration corridors and unindustrialized areas, according to federal officials.

The plan updates an effort initiated in 2012, when the federal government under then-President Barack Obama envisioned industrial-scale solar would be concentrated in very high solar potential areas of the southwest. The updated version, however — part of President Joe Biden’s goals to expand renewable energy development to address climate change — expanded the study area to include several more western states, including Wyoming.