With the public unveiling last week of a 3-MW solar + storage project west of Winters, Valley Clean Energy (VCE) took another step toward its goal of providing more local renewable power generation for its customers.
The 20-year agreement with Putah Creek Solar Farms for 3 MW of solar energy and 3 MW of battery storage was approved by VCE’s board of directors last December. Valley Clean Energy is the local electricity provider for the cities of Winters, Woodland and Davis as well as the unincorporated portions of Yolo County.
At the public event Aug. 10, Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, a longtime Winters resident who was the city’s first female mayor, applauded Winters area farmer and project co-owner Dan Martinez as a “visionary,” while adding that California must triple its annual solar and wind installations to meet its goal of a carbon-neutral grid by 2045.
“Because of the threat of more frequent wildfires in California, we must do everything possible to increase local reliability in the electricity supply and systems,” Aguiar-Curry added, pointing to the Winters project as a key piece of the puzzle.
Winters City Councilmember Jesse Loren, vice- chair of the VCE board, reminded the gathering of local politicians, policymakers and industry professionals that VCE has set an ambitious goal of providing 80% renewable energy by 2030, with up to 25% of that coming from local sources.
“Winters is an agrarian community; it’s a farming community,” she said. “And do you know what we’re farming today? We’re farming energy, and I couldn’t be more proud of that.
“What we need are local jobs: that’s how we’ll reduce vehicle miles traveled, that’s how we will help with our own climate goals. And this is a beautiful match,” Loren said, pointing to the project site. “It’s local jobs, local energy, feeding our grid locally.”
Property owner Dan Martinez said the 8,262 photovoltaic panels and the battery storage system will occupy approximately 19 acres of a 31-acre property that once was a walnut orchard. Commercial operation of the project is expected by November.
The Putah Creek Land Co. also built a 15-acre solar array just south of this property in 2014; energy from that plant is sold to PG&E.
“Yolo County has a long history of protecting agricultural ground,” said Martinez, who is joined in this effort by his longtime business partner Santiago Moreno. “But they also understand the fact that there’s a balance. In this case, we’re removing trees that were one resource and now we’re producing a different resource.”
In addition to the Putah Creek Solar Farm, the VCE board also approved the Gibson Renewables project last December, which is expected to generate 20 MW of solar energy and provide 6.5 MW of battery energy storage. Commercial operation of that project, which will be built along Highway 16 between Madison and Esparto, is targeted for late 2022.
Together, the two projects are expected to satisfy nearly 10% of the energy needs of VCE’s entire service area.
