Approvals in Hand, 350-Megawatt Boulder Solar Project Seeks Power Purchase Agreement

---

Researched by Industrial Information Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The Boulder Solar Project, proposed by Boulder Solar Power LLC (Las Vegas, Nevada), passed a significant milestone last week when Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewel announced the approval of three major solar energy projects totaling 520 megawatts (MW). The Boulder Solar Project is the largest of the three by far, weighing in at 350 MW and estimated at about $1 billion in investment value.

Boulder Solar LLC is a subsidiary of South Korea Midland Power Company (KOMIPO) (Seoul) and is working with the Louis Berger Group Incorporated (Morristown, New Jersey) to get a power purchase agreement (PPA) in place. The project will be built using thin-film photovoltaic solar panels on 1,554 acres of private lands, about 7 miles southwest of Boulder City, Nevada. The project will cross 76 acres of federal transmission corridor. The land is owned by Boulder City and leased to KOMIPO. Interestingly, the project has been called Midland Solar by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), even though the application and the owners refer to it as Boulder Solar.

The project will provide enough electricity to power about 100,000 homes, and create 350 construction jobs at its peak and up to 10 permanent jobs once the plant is complete. There are several transmission options under consideration, ranging from 1.5 to 3.3 miles of 230- or 500-kilovolt line. The project will obtain water from the existing Boulder City Public Works Department main pipeline. Construction is planned to start in the second quarter of next year and will take approximately two years to complete, while the transmission line is expected to take about six months to complete. This projected timeline may change, as it depends on the developers securing a PPA.

Nevada has attracted a lot of solar projects over the years, and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) estimates that there are more than 300 MW of operating solar plants in Nevada already and that there is more than 10 times that capacity being developed for the state. Industrial Info is tracking 11 projects in active development in Nevada. All of them are available to our subscribers online.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR), with global headquarters in Sugar Land, Texas, and eight offices outside of North America, is the leading provider of global market intelligence specializing in the industrial process, heavy manufacturing and energy markets. Industrial Info's quality-assurance philosophy, the Living Forward Reporting Principle™, provides up-to-the-minute intelligence on what's happening now, while constantly keeping track of future opportunities.