600 MW Trio of Solar Plants Gets Go-Ahead in California

Environmental groups are supporting three large solar projects, that together will form the world’s largest solar farm.

California’s Imperial County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved it this week.

The three projects, which will total 600 megawatts (MW), will be built on private land that was used to grow water-intensive grasses, rather than on environmentally sensitive public land.

When the Mt. Signal, Calexico I and Calexico II projects come online, they’ll produce electricity for over 200,000 households.

The developer is Folsom’s 8minutenergy. The company says it will work with the Sierra Club to protect threatened species in the area, going beyond California law.

The Sierra Club also has an agreement with the developer to hire local people – the county has the highest unemployment rate in the state 27%.

"By choosing a project with very few impacts to wildlife, 8minutenergy has shown that renewable energy can be developed quickly and without sacrificing sensitive wildlife and wild lands," says Kim Delfino, California Program Director for Defenders of Wildlife. "These projects are shining examples of how to develop solar energy right."

Calico Project Being Sued

Last month, the same environmental groups – Defenders of Wildlife, Natural Resources Defense Council and Sierra Club – filed suit against an even larger plant, the 660 MW Calico solar project because it fails to meet basic environmental protection requirements and threatens imperiled wildlife. 

Calico would cover 4,000-plus-acres of vital wildlife habitat in the Mojave Desert’s Pisgah Valley.

They are suing the U.S. Department of Interior after failing to reach agreement with the developers, the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to move the project to another location.

Over the course of three years, the groups suggested options such as nearby degraded private agricultural land, but all attempts were rejected.

Since 2009, the three groups have supported or reached agreements with developers on 5 of 7 large-scale solar projects in California. The consensus building effort resulted in better projects that are resulting in nearly 2.6 gigawatts of energy, while create almost 3,670 solar jobs in construction and 525 permanent jobs, while minimizing impacts on key species and wild lands.

The project has had multiple problems. It’s changed hands, switched technologies, been postponed, and lost its power purchase contract. When first conceived it was to cover over 7000 acres.