DOE issues 2nd RFQ for clean energy projects at Savannah River Site
The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has issued a request for qualifications related to the department’s Cleanup to Clean Energy initiative for utility-scale energy projects at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
This is the second RFQ issued for the 310-square-mile site. While the first, which closed on April 19 this year, was limited to solar energy projects, this latest request is open to all carbon pollution–free electricity projects, including nuclear.
According to the DOE, the federal government is also open to considering proposals that include development of co-located loads, such as data centers, that would directly offtake the carbon-free energy generated on DOE property.
The details: The purpose of the RFQ, which was issued on August 21, is to receive proposals from parties interested in utilizing DOE-owned land at SRS to develop carbon pollution–free electricity projects with a focus on generating opportunities for projects of 200 megawatts or larger, benefiting the broader region.
Comments and questions on the RFQ are due by August 30, and proposals are due by October 4.
More information can be found on the DOE-EM Clean Energy Land Reuse website.
The initiative: Part of the Biden administration’s call to federal agencies to reach 100 percent clean electricity on a net annual basis by 2030, the Cleanup to Clean Energy initiative is an effort to repurpose underutilized DOE-owned property—portions of which were previously used in the nation’s nuclear weapons program—into the sites of carbon-free energy generation.
The DOE defines carbon-free energy as electricity produced from resources that generate no carbon emissions, including marine energy, solar, wind, hydrokinetic (including tidal, wave, current and thermal), geothermal, hydroelectric, nuclear, renewably sourced hydrogen, and electrical energy generation from fossil resources to the extent that there is active capture and storage of carbon dioxide emissions.
Since announcing the initiative in July last year, the DOE has issued six RFQs to lease land at SRS, the Hanford Site in Washington state, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, the Nevada National Security Site, and Idaho National Laboratory.
SRS: In response to the DOE’s first RFQ for clean-energy projects at SRS, issued on March 11, the department selected two developers for two separate solar projects.
On June 20, it was announced that Dallas-based Stellar Renewable Power had been given the opportunity to negotiate a land lease to deploy 75 megawatts of photovoltaic electricity to the grid with the potential for a battery-energy storage system on at least 500 acres of land at SRS.
Then, on July 18, the office announced that Ameresco of Framingham, Mass., had been selected to negotiate a land lease to deploy 75 megawatts of photovoltaic electricity to the grid with the potential for a battery-energy storage system, also on 500 acres of SRS land.
