LAS VEGAS -- It's been two years in the making, and now "Smart from the Start" planning for solar development in the Southwest is expected to start paying off for the Silver State. The federal government has identified a half-dozen sites for large-scale solar development, mostly in Southern Nevada.

Former president of the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates, Timothy Hay, says rather than taking a dartboard approach to site selection where they hope to hit the bulls-eye, this plan identifies locations for large-scale solar projects where developers reduce the risk running into such difficult environmental issues as potential harm to endangered species.

"You identify the sites where there are fewer, if any, of those conflicts – so it will probably be years quicker locating projects on these sites than on sites that are not in these indicated solar zones."

Hay sees the federal solar plan released this week for public lands as especially important in Nevada, because 67 percent of the state sits on land managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). He also notes that Nevada has a lot more natural solar radiation than Germany, which currently leads the world in solar production per capita.

Lydia Ball, executive director of the Clean Energy Project, credits both the federal Energy Department and Department of Interior with doing their homework over the past two years. The agencies considered at least 600 pages of input from a wide variety of Nevada sources, ranging from environmental groups to hunters.

"And it inventoried all kinds of plant and animal species, but it also took into account cultural aspects - so, even a local community was able to comment and able to say that a development would be great in one certain area, better than another area."

Advocates of solar power say the Southwest continues to grow in both population and energy consumption, so there should be a ready market for this source of renewable energy.