The Bureau of Land Management Stillwater Field Office has approved the Dixie Meadows Geothermal Development Project. The project is in Churchill and Pershing Counties, approximately 43 miles northeast of Fallon, Nevada on BLM-administered land.
The project includes the development and operation of up to two 30-Megawatt net rated geothermal power plants; drilling, testing, and operating up to 18 geothermal production and injection well sites and eight-core hole sites; constructing and operating pipelines to carry geothermal fluid between well fields and the power plants; and constructing either a 120-kilovolt (kV) or a 230-kV gen-tie and associated structures.
States across the western United States have adopted renewable portfolio standards that require electricity providers to obtain a certain percentage of power from renewable energy resources. Nevada’s renewable portfolio standard requires that the state’s utilities procure 25 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2025. The Dixie Meadows Geothermal Utilization Project would help to meet these mid-and long-term regional needs. This project also supports Executive Order 14008: Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad and the Energy Act of 2020.
Comments on the draft environmental assessment were accepted from May 9, 2017, through June 30, 2017. Since that time, Ormat Nevada, in coordination with the BLM and partner agencies including the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Naval Air Station Fallon, US Geological Survey, and Nevada Department of Wildlife, developed the Aquatic Resource Monitoring and Mitigation Plan. An additional 30-day public comment period with the revised environmental assessment occurred from January 13 through February 12, 2021.
A copy of the final environmental analysis, decision record, and other related documents is available at https://go.usa.gov/xAPfE.
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