US Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has greenlighted the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm, a 550MW (AC) solar power project to be developed, built, and operated by First Solar on 4100 acres of public lands in the California desert outside Joshua Tree National Park. Construction on the site could begin within days.

“The issuance of Desert Sunlight’s Record of Decision (ROD) is a major milestone in the project’s permitting process and paves the way for construction to begin by mid-August, maintaining the project’s eligibility for the DOE’s loan guarantee program,” Frank De Rosa, First Solar’s senior VP of North American project development, told PV-Tech.

Desert Sunlight is the beneficiary of a conditional loan guarantee commitment of $1.88 billion, which was announced in June by the US Department of Energy.

“The 550MW Desert Sunlight project will be the largest PV project on federally managed land in the United States and one of the two largest PV solar projects in the world,” he continued, “both of which are being developed by First Solar.” (The other is the 550MW [AC] Topaz Solar Farm, located in the Carrizo Plain area of San Luis Obispo County, CA.)

Although he could provide any detail on the timeline of the construction phases planned at the project or any update on a potential buyer/owner for the site, De Rosa did say that nearly 9 million of the company’s Series 3 cadmium telluride thin-film PV panels will be deployed.

First Solar has two signed power purchase agreements for the project, one for 250MW with Southern California Edison, the other for 300MW with Pacific Gas & Electric.