A 10-year solar project in California aims to 'harvest the sun'

The Valley Clean Infrastructure Plan delivers economic value to growers, 
local governments and residents. (Map by Binh Nguyen, Canary Media )

Directors of the largest agricultural water agency in the U.S. are creating a plan to save California farmland from a decades-long water crisis, reports Jeff St. John for Canary Media.

The Valley Clean Infrastructure Plan will transform 136,000 acres of farmland that's no longer irrigable into 21 gigawatts of battery-back solar power, enough to power nine million houses, St. John explains.

The planned build will be the largest project not just in California or the U.S., but in the world, said Jeff Fortune, a third-generation farmer and the board president of the Westlands Water District.

The plans were approved in December, and the project may take 10 years or more, St. John reports. 

"The way we look at it is a new crop," a fifth-generation farmer and another director of the district, Jeremy Hughes, told St. John. "We're harvesting the sun and producing electricity."

In the next 20 years, the state will require four to five times as much new clean energy as the project will provide, according to another director, Ross Franson.