Issuance of a Loan Guarantee to First Solar, Inc., for the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm Project

Résumé

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announces its decision to issue a loan guarantee under Title XVII of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct 2005) to First Solar, Inc., (First Solar) for construction and start-up of the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm Project (DSSFP or the Project), a 550-megawatt (MW) nominal capacity solar photovoltaic power generating facility on approximately 4,144 acres, all of which is administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management (BLM), in Riverside County, California. The potential environmental impacts of constructing and operating this project were analyzed pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in Plan Amendment/Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm Project (76 Federal Register [FR] 21402; April 15, 2011) prepared by the BLM Palm Springs- South Coast Field Office with DOE as a cooperating agency. BLM consulted DOE during preparation of the EIS, DOE provided comments to BLM on the content, and BLM addressed those comments in the Final EIS. DOE subsequently determined that the project analyzed in the Final EIS is substantially the same as the project that would be covered by t