A solar facility with the capacity to power 16,000 homes is proposed for 320 acres of agricultural land in the Cuyama Valley. This would be the first such renewable energy project in Santa Barbara County.
First Solar presented the project’s final environmental impact report to the county’s Planning Commission on July 22. Plans for solar panels, electrical conveyance lines, and a switch station have been in the works for three years.
The company is based in Arizona and has solar installations all over the nation, including 20 projects that are at some point in the planning process within California. Topaz Solar Farm, First Solar’s 550-megawatt facility on the Carrizo Plains in San Luis Obispo County, started producing electricity in January.
Commissioners decided 4-0—4th District Commissioner Larry Ferini was absent—to recommend that county supervisors approve the project with some minor changes. The last alternative energy project permitted by the county was a wind farm in Lompoc, but the company funding the project, Acciona, pulled the plug last July.
The project would be erected on agriculturally zoned land currently owned by Bolthouse Farms, a baby carrot producer. The land requires more water and more growing days than the land surrounding it, and therefore isn’t as productive, said Susan Petrovich, who spoke to the commission on behalf of Bolthouse Farms.
She added that the 320 acres Bolthouse would be selling is a “drop in the proverbial bucket” compared to the 11,000 to 14,000 acres of Cuyama Valley land the company farms. Petrovich assured the commission that Bolthouse wasn’t planning to lay off any of its workers.
The county’s usual energy-project dissenters, such as the Los Padres branch of the Sierra Club and 350.org, advocated for the commission to approve the project.
“We’re very happy to be here today in support of a project,” Sharon Broberg said during the public comment portion of the hearing, adding that she usually appears before the commission to speak out against oil projects. “We do need the energy, and we will have the customers.”
However, no development project in the county would feel complete without a small contingency of naysayers. The Santa Barbara Audubon Society spoke out against the project because members believe the environmental impact statement doesn’t provide sufficient protection for California condors against electrocution from electrical lines. Among other things, the society also asked that First Solar put native plants and grasses among, under, and bordering the panels, and save a space for burrowing owls to nest.
Steve Ferry spoke for Audubon members, saying the Audubon Society would normally support a solar project but couldn’t support this particular one as outlined in the environmental impact report.
One of the conditions commissioners recommended supervisors place on the project included a mandatory spacing requirement of 83 inches between power lines in order to protect the California condor from electrocution.
This article appears in Jul 24-31, 2014.