Farmers increasingly counting on sunshine for energy production
By Juliana Barbassa
ASSOCIATED PRESS
12:19 a.m. June 22, 2005
CLOVIS – Pat Ricchiuti has always counted on California's steady sunshine to bring out his peaches' red blush and juicy, tangy sweetness.
Now, the second-generation farmer is also counting on the sun to run the conveyor belts that fill his packing shed, sorting, sizing and packaging 1.5 million boxes of fruit a year.
The farmer is tiling the roof of his 150,000-square-foot shed with 7,730 solar panels, each 40-by-48 inches.
By July 8, the solar rooftop will begin producing 1 megawatt of energy – enough to cut Ricchiuti's $1.5 million annual energy bill in half.
"It's the right thing to do," Ricchiuti said. "This is agriculture doing its part to clean the environment. But it also makes economic sense."
Ricchiuti's P-R Farms may be installing one of the state's largest privately financed solar energy systems, but many other smaller agricultural operations around California have already been looking to the sun to run irrigation pumps, produce coolers and other energy-hungry equipment.
Solar power is also making inroads farther north, among the vineyards of Napa and Sonoma, where wineries like Fetzer Vineyards, Rodney Strong Vineyards, and Domain Carneros have been turning to sunshine to satisfy their energy consumption. Some, like Long Meadow Ranch winery in Napa, rely on solar power to meet 100 percent of their energy needs.
Solar energy has the potential to be an important part of California's energy future, together with conservation, and traditional large-scale power plants, said Jim Tischer, a regional program manager for the Center for Irrigation Technology at California State University, Fresno.
Solar power works well in rural areas like the Central Valley – one of the nation's dirtiest air basins – because it doesn't pollute, it can produce power right where it's needed, and it's most available during the long, hot summer afternoons when farm machinery is running full throttle, Tischer said.
Farmers, packers, shippers and others said they liked the independence that having their own system gave them, and welcomed the clean air benefits. But many said they turned to solar because it was a good investment.
During the hot, dry summer days when cotton grows best, irrigation pumps can work 24 hours a day, said Gary Martin, the foreman at the 1,250-acre D.T. Locke Ranch.
After the 2000-01 energy crisis sent electricity bills soaring and brought rolling blackouts, threatening the crop and the farm's profit margin, it made sense to try a system that would give farmers control over their energy production, Martin said.
"We'd just spent too much money on power," Martin said. "It was out of control."
The ranch installed a 36-kilowatt system that went live in 2003. It cost $290,000 to build, but state rebates and a one-time state and federal tax credit reimbursed half the cost. Martin expects the system to have paid for itself in seven years.
"After that, it's money in the pocket," he said.
Ricchiuti also credited the state's incentive program with making his investment in solar energy possible. His project cost $6.4 million – a prohibitive sum that was cut in half by state rebates and tax incentives.
California has offered businesses interested in going solar a tiered system to recoup their investment.
The California Energy Commission pays back projects up to 30 kilowatts a rebate of $2.80 per watt, while larger projects like Ricchiuti's are given $3.50 per watt. State and federal tax credits help further defray the large initial cost of installing the solar system, leading to total rebates that can cover half the original investment.
A bill sponsored by Sen. Kevin Murray, D-Culver City, would simplify the rebate process, and provide a decade's worth of incentives to help Californians install 1 million rooftop solar energy systems by 2018. The bill has passed the Senate and is awaiting a hearing in the Assembly.
"It's cheap, it's clean, it'll significantly improve our air quality," Murray said of solar power. And best of all, he said "no trader in some trading room can set the price on the sun."
These incentives help make a practice that many growers chose because it meshes with their ideology of sustainable farming into something that works in the real world of dollars and cents.
When Long Meadow Ranch vineyards' 50-watt solar system went live in January, it was "the latest addition to underscore our sustainable philosophy at the ranch," owner Ted Hall said in a statement.
His 650-acre operation, nestled in Napa's Macayamas mountains, produces organically certified wine, olive oil, grass-fed beef and heirloom fruits and vegetables.
The property already relied on cleaner-burning, renewable biodiesel fuel to run tractors. Now its 50-kilowatt solar power system supplies all the electricity used on the grounds, and even feeds some power back to the grid. This makes the meter run backward, giving Long Meadow ranch energy credits it can use at night, or on cloudy days, ultimately turning the system into a "profit center," Hall said.
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