Solar · Analysis

The desert is not empty: solar siting meets the tortoise

Big desert solar farms near LA now route around tortoise habitat, tribal lands, and viewsheds. Here is how siting works, where the fights are, and the low-disturbance designs regulators increasingly ask for.

BY THE RENEWABLE ENERGY LA EDITORS · FILED SEPTEMBER 28, 2026 · 6 MIN READ ·

How a desert project gets sited now

Most utility-scale desert solar near LA sits on federal land the Bureau of Land Management runs, so the first gate is a federal one. Since about 2016, the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (a joint federal and state land-use plan for the California desert, usually shortened to DRECP) has steered big projects toward "Development Focus Areas," blocks of land already judged lower-conflict, and away from stretches set aside for conservation. The idea is to do the hard habitat math once, up front, instead of one project at a time.

A project inside those focus areas still runs a National Environmental Policy Act review (NEPA, the federal law that forces an agency to study a project's effects before approving it) and still triggers consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over the tortoise. Surveys, fencing, and a plan to move any tortoises found are usually conditions of approval. None of this is fast. Timelines slip, and a contested project can sit in review for years.

The land-use fights, mapped

The map is crowded. Parts of the desert are tribal homeland, with cultural sites and trails a solar field would sit on top of, and tribes have standing to be consulted early. Other stretches are prized viewsheds, the open sightlines that draw people to Joshua Tree and the back roads around it, and residents fight projects that would fill them with steel and glass.

Local government pushes back too. San Bernardino County, the largest county in the country by area, moved a few years ago to bar large solar farms near many of its unincorporated desert communities, which pushed developers toward other parcels. And the most bitter fight tends to be tortoise translocation: moving animals off a site does not always go well for them, and biologists disagree about how many survive the move.

Low-disturbance designs gaining ground

One response gaining ground is to disturb less dirt. Older projects bladed the site flat, scraping off every plant and grading the ground before the first post went in. Newer designs try to keep the desert floor closer to intact: mowing vegetation instead of stripping it, driving steel piles straight into the ground rather than pouring graded pads, and setting panels higher so plants and small animals can live underneath.

Developers like these methods partly because less grading can mean less dust, less erosion, and a lighter permitting fight, which can save time and money. They are not a cure. A big array still fences off land and still changes how water and animals move across it, and how well "low-impact" designs hold up over decades is still being studied. But the direction is real, and regulators increasingly ask for it.

What it means for your bill and the wire

For an LA ratepayer, this is not abstract. LADWP has signed some of its largest clean-energy deals for desert solar paired with batteries, including the Eland project up in Kern County near the Mojave, sized on the order of a few hundred megawatts of solar with big storage, per the utility's project pages. That power still has to reach the basin over long transmission lines, and that grid is run day to day by the California Independent System Operator (CAISO, the nonprofit that balances supply and demand across most of the state).

So the siting fights out in the desert show up, eventually, on your bill and on the reliability of the wire during a September heat spell. A project that stalls in review is clean power that does not arrive on schedule. That is the honest link between a tortoise fence in the Mojave and the AC humming in Highland Park.

Worth watching this month

1. Watch BLM's running list of desert solar applications for any new project proposed inside a DRECP Development Focus Area near the Kern or San Bernardino county line, which would signal where the next round of siting lands.

2. Routine: seasonal tortoise survey windows run mostly in spring and fall, so expect project survey notices around then, most of them procedural rather than a sign of trouble.

3. Watch LADWP board agendas for any new desert solar-plus-storage contract, since those deals are what actually change the basin's power mix.

4. CAISO's transmission planning updates are worth a skim for new desert lines, because a project without a wire to LA is a project that waits.

5. Any San Bernardino County hearing on its renewable-energy land rules matters, since county zoning still decides where large arrays can go on non-federal land.

Where this dispatch reads

BLM, Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (federal, .gov), www.blm.gov/programs/energy/renewable-energy/desert-renewable-energy-conservation-plan, The federal and state land-use plan that steers desert solar toward lower-conflict Development Focus Areas.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Mojave desert tortoise (federal, .gov), www.fws.gov/species/mojave-desert-tortoise-gopherus-agassizii, The wildlife agency's page on the threatened tortoise and what its protection requires of a project.
California Energy Commission, power plant siting (state, .gov), www.energy.ca.gov/programs-and-topics/topics/power-plants, The state energy agency's overview of how large projects get reviewed and licensed in California.
California Independent System Operator (grid operator), www.caiso.com, The grid operator that moves desert power to the basin and plans the transmission lines it rides on.
LADWP, clean energy and power content (city utility), www.ladwp.com, The city utility that buys desert solar and storage for LA; see its project and power-content pages.

Questions readers have asked

Is the desert tortoise really that big a factor for solar?

Yes. It is federally threatened, so a project on its habitat triggers federal consultation and usually tortoise surveys, fencing, and relocation plans. Those add real cost and time.

Does rooftop solar avoid all of this?

Mostly. Panels on an existing roof do not disturb desert habitat. The basin still leans on big desert projects for a large share of its clean supply, though, so both matter.

What is a Development Focus Area?

It is a block of desert the DRECP already judged lower-conflict for energy projects. Developers are steered there to speed permitting and keep the most sensitive lands off-limits.

Are low-disturbance designs proven?

Partly. Mowing instead of grading and driven piles clearly cut dust and soil damage. How well habitat survives underneath a working array over decades is still being studied.