California reaches new heights in renewable energy
The Central Valley represents only one percent of the total acreage of our nation’s agricultural lands, yet it produces one-fourth of all our nation’s food. Now, a new Valley crop is achieving equally remarkable results: clean energy.
By Scott Farris, The Sentinel
California hit a major milestone earlier this year when renewable energy generated 100 percent of our state’s electricity for all or a portion of 100 consecutive days. Having our grid run on all clean, renewable energy is increasingly common, and shows the Central Valley can do for energy what it has done for food.
Renewable power, whether solar, wind or storage, is an important new crop for farmers who, faced with the ravages of climate change and loss of irrigation, must find new sources of income.
The company I work for, EDP Renewables, has already invested heavily in the Valley and will continue to do so. Our three current projects in operation in Kern and San Bernardino counties have, in just the past few years, generated more than $22 million to support area schools, infrastructure, emergency management and other public services for those communities.
In July, EDPR hosted a ribbon-cutting at our newest Central Valley project, a 240 megawatt solar plus storage facility located about 30 miles west of Fresno that we call Scarlett I. Demonstrating how these projects can support the local agricultural community, EDPR will make an estimated $30 million in payments to local landowners over the next 25 years, and will spend millions more at local businesses during construction and operation.
EDPR will soon begin operation on two more nearly completed clean energy projects in Fresno and Kern counties, and we plan to invest in many other counties up and down the Central Valley, not to supplant the agriculture that helps feed the world, but to support it by diversifying the region’s economy, giving farmers a new source of income, reversing the climate change that is altering the Valley and by the producing a product, electricity, now nearly as essential to life as food.