On August 24, San Francisco-based Cleantech America, a developer of utility-scale solar energy projects, began construction on a Mendota, California solar farm which will cover 40 acres and yield approximately 5 megawatts of clean, renewable solar electricity.
Mendota, located in the San Joaquin Valley, is farming country. Known as the cantaloupe capital of the world, it also produces most of the table grapes, tomatoes, onions and nuts delivered to grocery stores across the nation. But farming in the Valley faces increasingly difficult challenges as drought and water restrictions (one of them in the name of a small fish called the Delta smelt) limit the number of crops grown and also the number of people employed. This summer, unemployment in the Valley hit 38 percent.
This newest crop, solar panels, is – according to Mendota Mayor Robert Silva – about as green as it’s going to get, and offers hope for both jobs and future opportunities to those displaced by persistent drought and a year-long recession.
The project is being called CalRENEW, and the electricity generated by the panels will be sold to regional utility Pacific Gas & Electric Co., or PG&E. The panels, composed of thin-film solar manufactured in Japan by Osaka-based Sharp Solar – a world leader in solar photovoltaic energy systems – will begin arriving sometime in September, with the solar farm scheduled for completion by the end of the year.
The 5-megawatt farm, built on land leased from the city by Cleantech America, will produce enough electricity to serve 4,000 homes, and prevent 2,500 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year – emissions that would exist if the generation were coal-fired instead of relying on clean, renewable sunlight.
The project will initially employ about 60 people, according to Jeffrey Schmidt, the president of Golden State Utility Co., the primary contractor licensed to build the solar farm. Forty percent will be new hires, according to Schmidt, who says the company is hoping to hire as many individuals as possible locally. Once completed, however, the solar farm will employ only a handful of maintenance and security experts. Still, the addition of the solar farm may attract other businesses to Mendota – businesses interested in associating themselves with Mendota’s new, “green” profile, albeit one no longer dependent on crops.
For Cleantech America, founded in 2005 and recently acquired by New Zealand-based Meridian Energy, the Mendota solar farm represents the first, but also likely the smallest installation it will ever handle. Cleantech/Meridian is already in talks with another California utility to build a much larger solar installation.
State-owned Meridian Energy is New Zealand’s largest generator of electricity from wind and hydroelectric, and the acquisition of Cleantech is the company’s entry point into America’s clean-tech sector, as well as its first solar venture.