Land of the free?

The West is attractive to renewable energy developers.

Just east of the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area on the Oregon-Washington border, one can’t drive down I-84 without noticing turbine after turbine peeking out from the crest of the hills. But even as wind farms in Oregon and Washington set a new record for power production in August 2009, renewable energy developers are looking to lay claim on the latest prime spots for power projects.

While solar and other renewable energy companies are anxious to take advantage of federal grants, state tax credits and plentiful opportunities thanks to state renewable energy portfolios, gaining access to suitable land is tougher than ever. And the next few years could be critical, as new technologies try to prove themselves and federal and state land agencies wrestle with the red tape of green-lighting a clean energy infrastructure.

For companies looking to build large-scale renewable energy projects, figuring out where to put them is a lot less glamorous than demonstrating a new technology or scoring high-profile utility deals. It may be less exciting to talk hectares than heliostats, but developers are finding that land use and its attendant legal and permitting issues are a sticking point for their projects.

Case in point: stimulus funds. Two big-deal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act programs that would pour billions of dollars into renewable energy development include time requirements for construction commencement.

And the clock is ticking. The Department of Energy’s loan guarantee program, which would support up to $60 billion in projects, requires construction to begin by the end of September 2011. Meanwhile, a Treasury Department program that offers a grant for 30 percent of project costs in lieu of tax credits requires construction to commence by the end of 2010.

The deadlines “are tomorrow” for developers of large-scale projects, says Katherine Gensler, manager of regulatory and legislative affairs for the Washington, D.C.-based Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA). “That’s a make or break thing for developers,” Gensler says of scoring stimulus dollars.