The National Nuclear Security Administration’s largest ever carbon-pollution-free procurement would be a partnership with Los Alamos that aims to provide two Department of Energy labs in New Mexico with electricity from solar energy, the agency said Thursday.
The project — called the Los Alamos County Foxtail Flats Solar and Storage Project — will notionally be fully operational March 1, 2026. It would be expected to provide 170 megawatts of solar energy to Los Alamos County, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, and the Department of Defense’s Kirtland Air Force Base.
The aim of the partnership would be to advance the Joe Biden (D) administration’s sustainability goals of 100% carbon-free energy (CFE) by 2030, to increase CFE on the grid and electricity overall, to lower electricity and fossil fuel costs, to generate land lease payments to New Mexico and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, and to increase the DOE’s reliance on solar energy, according to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) press release.
