Department of Energy March 31, 2011 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announces the availability of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the DOE Loan Guarantee to Royal Bank of Scotland for Construction and Startup of the Topaz Solar Farm, San Luis Obispo County, California (DOE/EIS-0458D) (Draft EIS) for public review and comment, as well as the date, location and time for a public hearing. The Draft EIS analyzes the potential environmental impacts of the DOE's proposed action of issuing a Federal loan guarantee to support construction and startup of the Topaz Solar Farm Project located in San Luis Obispo County, California (Proposed Project). The Royal Bank of Scotland plc, as Lender-Applicant, with Topaz Solar Farms, LLC (Topaz) as the borrower, submitted an application to DOE under the Federal loan guarantee program pursuant to the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct 2005). Topaz is a limited liability company that is owned by First Solar, Inc. The loan guarantee would support the financing arranged by the Royal Bank of Scotland for the construction and start up of the Proposed Project. Topaz proposes to develop the Project on up to 4,100 acres of land. As proposed, the nominal 550-megawatt electric generation project would include the installation of about nine million photovoltaic (PV) solar modules within approximately 437 arrays and associated electric equipment. Generated electricity would be sold to Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) under a long-term power purchase agreement. The Project would be interconnected into PG&E's existing Morro Bay-Midway 230- kilovolt (kV) transmission line, which runs in an east-to-west direction through the site and portions of Kern County.

This document announces receipt by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) of 29 petitions from 27 manufacturers seeking a 180-day extension of the compliance date related to recent amendments to the DOE test procedure for residential furnaces and boilers to address the standby mode and off mode energy consumption of those products. The petitioners demonstrated that meeting the specified compliance date would impose an undue hardship. Accordingly, today's Decision and Order grants these petitions to extend the compliance date by the requested 180 days.