Solar farm visit changed my mind about rural installations

Last month I drove out to a 200 acre solar project near Fresno to see what the fuss was about. Everyone in my county meeting kept saying these things destroy farmland, but walking between those panels I saw wildflowers and bees everywhere. The ground under them was actually healthier than the dry dirt next door. My neighbor still thinks I'm crazy for supporting it, but I'd rather see panels than another almond orchard sucking the aquifer dry. Anyone else actually visit a site before forming an opinion?

1 comments

1 Comment

taylor_barnes5918d ago

My cousin manages a community solar plot in Kern County and he told me something that changed how I look at these projects: the lease payments to farmers are often double what they'd make growing row crops on marginal land. So it's not just about the soil health you saw, which is great by the way, it's about keeping family farms solvent without selling out to developers for housing. That 200 acres near Fresno is probably generating enough power for a few thousand homes, and the farmer who leased it can still run cattle or bees on it. Your almond orchard point is spot on too, nobody talks about how much groundwater those things pull compared to a solar array that needs almost none after construction. I drove past a solar site in the high desert last year and the guy next door was grazing sheep under the panels, so the land isn't just sitting there dead.

-1