Navajo Power has secured a Navajo Nation land lease for a 750 MW solar and storage project at a rental rate of $545 per acre per year.
The company expects to secure an interconnection agreement by year-end for the project, which is sized at 930 MW-dc/ 750 MW-ac of solar and 750 MW/3 GWh of battery energy storage.
Project partner AES expects construction on the Cameron, Arizona project to begin in 2027 and operation to begin in 2030.
AES, which operates in Arizona as a project developer and independent power producer, will be the plant’s long-term owner and operator.
Power from the project will be bid out to regional utilities. Navajo Power Senior Director of Project Development Adelita Barrett said that to date Arizona utility APS and other utilities have earmarked purchases of renewable energy on the Navajo Nation in their requests for proposals. Past purchase agreements for power from the region have stretched as far as Los Angeles, which for decades bought power from the now-closed Navajo Generating Station on the Navajo Nation.
Navajo Power CEO Brett Isaac in 2020 projected a potential for 10 GW of renewable resources across the Navajo Nation as coal plant retirements were opening up transmission capacity.
Updating that assessment, Isaac said that load growth in the region “is only increasing the potential for the Navajo Nation to be a regional energy leader,” but due to increased interconnection queues at substations and lines across the Nation, “expanding transmission capacity would help to better situate the Navajo Nation as a regional energy player going forward.”
To meet local Navajo households’ immediate needs for electricity, “rather than wait years for distribution lines,” Barrett said the company’s subsidiary Navajo Power Home has installed more than 500 off-grid systems on the Navajo Nation, including 80 systems in the Cameron and Coalmine Canyon Chapters where the 750 MW project is located, and plans to install 400 more systems this year.
Community agreement
Commenting on the process to reach the land lease agreement, Barrett said that community consent is “at the core” of Navajo Power and AES’s approach to developing on the Navajo Nation. “Since the project’s origination in 2019, over 70 Chapter and community meetings have been held to inform and secure the consent of local community members.”
“This community education resulted in four separate Chapter resolutions of support, with high voter turnout at each vote. The consent of local valid grazing permit holders was obtained following Navajo Nation and Bureau of Indian Affairs protocols, which require Navajo Nation officials to be present, and were explained in Navajo and English. The Navajo Nation took these consents and resolutions into consideration in its issuance of a lease agreement.”
Barrett added that the Navajo Nation is a “key stakeholder in this project as the landowner.”
Grazing
Valid grazing permit holders impacted by the project have the option to continue grazing on project land, Barrett said. Asked whether any monetary compensation is being paid to grazing permit holders, Barrett said “we cannot disclose financial terms which are confidential. However, the project team worked to ensure that the local community and land users benefit from the project in addition to the Navajo central government.”
Barrett said that while the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Navajo Nation can grant grazing permits for other lands in exchange for consent to a project, “in the case of this project the impact did not require alternative permits outside the existing permit area.”
AES hosts a webpage for the 750 MW project.
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