Federal officials are trying to figure out why the Bureau of Land Management's first-ever auction of public land for solar-energy development failed to attract any bids.

According to the Denver Post, no bidders showed up for the first auction for three parcels of land in Colorado's San Luis Valley, even though five solar development companies had expressed interest in the land.

Three parcels covering 3,700 acres in so-called solar-energy zones were offered on Thursday. The bureau has created 19 zones for large solar projects in six Western states, encompassing nearly 300,000 acres, the newspaper reported.

"We are going to have to regroup and figure out what didn't work," Maryanne Kurtinaitis, the renewable-energy program manager for the BLM's Colorado division, told the Denver Post. "It is always tough to be the first out of the chute. This is a learning experience."

Industry officials attributed the auction's failure to uncertainties about the solar energy market and federal regulations.

Ken Johnson, a spokesman for the Solar Energy Industries, told the Post that financing large-scale solar projects remains a challenge for the industry.