Hecate Energy, participated by the Spanish Repsol, has reached an agreement with the United States Department of Energy to take the management of the largest nuclear weaponry arsenal during World War II.
The Hanford reserve, a desert extension that was fundamental for the country’s arms arsenal from 1943 until its closure in 1989, will now go to the promoter of renewables to build the largest photovoltaic plant in the country, according to reveals New York Times.
The United States Department of Energy opened in the middle of last year the option that Hecto Energy could negotiate a real estate agreement for up to 8,000 acres in Hanford, a surface almost ten times greater than Central Park in New York and sufficient space for 3.45 million photovoltaic panels.
The selection was made through a competitive process and occurred after a public consultation carried out in August 2023, an informative day in September of that year and a qualifications issued in March 2024.
The Energy DOE and Hecate maintain a negotiation process for a real estate agreement, and the DOE may cancel negotiations and terminate the selection for any reason during that time.
The hecate project, whose completion is scheduled for 2030, will become the largest location that the Government has cleaned of nuclear pollution and converted from land that had been used for research, armament and waste storage.
The future plant is expected to generate up to 2,000 MW of electricity and store another 2,000 MW in a large battery installation, with a total cost of 4,000 million dollars. Photovoltaic panels and batteries will provide twice as much energy as a conventional nuclear power plant. The largest solar plant in the country today, the Copper Mountain Solar Facility in Nevada, can generate up to 802 MW.
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