By Jesse Vad, SJV Water

The powerful, and politically right-leaning Westlands Water District recently teamed up with left-leaning democratic assemblymember Esmeralda Soria on renewable energy.

Her bill, AB 2661, was signed by Governor Gavin Newsom last month and will allow Westlands in western Fresno County  to oversee the generation, storage and transmission of solar energy.

Within Westlands, about 130,000 acres – a little more than one-third the footprint of the City of Los Angeles – has been taken out of agricultural production and is available for solar development under the renewable energy project, called the Valley Clean Infrastructure Plan (VCIP,) said Jose Gutierrez, assistant general manager of Westlands.

“What AB 2661 does is it provides us the ability to be the master planner for this solar development, which we’re excited about, because it allows us to be more thoughtful about how the solar goes in and how it’s integrated with the surrounding land use and incorporated into the district,” said Jeff Payne, the other assistant general manager of Westlands.

The plan allows for flexibility with land use and some of the land that is transitioned to solar may end up going back to agricultural use years later, said Payne. That flexibility has been key for Westlands’ growers who want to maintain their agricultural heritage, said Payne.

The law allows Westlands to generate power for its own facilities but it cannot get into retail distribution of power. But the demand from Westlands facilities is miniscule compared to the total potential of VCIP. The bulk of the energy would be fed into the state’s power grid. The project could deliver upwards of 20 gigawatts of energy. One gigawatt is enough to power 100 million LED light bulbs. VCIP could provide a sixth of California’s electricity in 2035.

Westlands will build transmission infrastructure but the rest of the solar facilities would be built by utility developers.

The project’s environmental impact report (EIR) should be available for public review in the second quarter of 2025, said Gutierrez. Then the Westlands board will vote whether to approve or reject the project.

It will likely be a, “number of years,” before electricity is being generated by the project, said Payne.

“If we had enough water, our farmers would prefer to farm, grow food for the country and the world,” said Gutierrez. “But because of the situation that we’re in with our lack of reliable water supply, this just gives them an opportunity to find another purpose for their land and generate some revenue so that they can make the farming business more successful.”

The collaboration between Westlands and democratic leadership isn’t so unusual for the valley, said Assemblymember Soria.

“I think projects like this really go beyond party lines,” said Soria. “And I think in the valley, there are many more opportunities to work together.”

Since private investors will be coming in to invest in the project, transmission infrastructure will be constructed likely two or three times faster than the state is able to build it, said Soria.

The project also has a community benefit requirement, said Soria. She and Westlands staff have been meeting with mayors, city managers, supervisors and residents to understand needs and what they hope to see for the communities from the project, Soria added. One need will be education and training for new workers within the solar energy project, she said.

Developers will put a piece of revenue back into the communities in the region, said Soria.

“We just didn’t give people the green light to build the clean energy infrastructure,” said Soria. “The community around it will, to some degree, bear the burden of seeing this land transition from ag to a clean energy project, that they actually reap the benefits of the investments that are going to happen in that area.”

SJV Water is an independent, nonprofit news site covering water in the San Joaquin Valley, www.sjvwater.org. Email us at sjvwater@sjvwater.org.