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Presumably this is opening up that much land for potential use, not putting diggers on the ground to start setting up panels tomorrow.

The next phases will be deciding where to actually put individual farms.

The article says we would need 700k, but clearly the idea is that 22m acres of land are permitted to have solar, not that 22m acres of land will all have solar deployed. As the article says, this gives maximum flexibility.

For example 700k acres in one spot would not be ideal as transmission losses to other regions would be significant, so we need more possible space to allow distributed production.

> transmission losses to other regions would be significant,

Significant but not as much as one might think.

"Depending on voltage level and construction details, HVDC transmission losses are quoted at 3.5% per 1,000 km (620 mi), "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current

https://library.e.abb.com/public/d4863a9b0f77b74ec1257b0c005...

You want the regulator to start with a perfected land use plan?