Another 250MW Kings County project filed
-June 6,2020-
Construction of the first phase of the ambitious Westlands Solar Park in Kings County has been launched as of March 2020 with development of their first major solar farm, the 250MW Aquamarine project.
Like all of their projects, the location is on Westlands Water District land along the Avenal Cutoff road – east of I-5. Aquamarine is expected to start power generation in late 2021.
Owners of Westland Solar Park – the CIM Group and Westside Holdings – announced recently that 50MW of electricity generated from Aquamarine will be purchased by Valley Clean Energy Alliance, a local electricity provider, for supplying to Davis and Woodland cities and unincorporated portions of Yolo County.
The other 11 solar farms that are part of coming phases will follow in the next few years. Others that are named Westlands Solar Blue, Westlands Almond, Westlands Grape and Westlands Pomegranate with the capacity of 250MW each, as well as 150MW Westside Chestnut.
The Westlands Solar Park’s master plan area will house 12 solar photovoltaic generating facilities to be developed in phases over 12 years.
Latest filing
In the past few weeks plans for Westlands Grape have been filed with the Kings County Planning Commission starting the environmental review for this project on nearly 1800 acres along Nevada Ave between Hwy 41 and the Avenal Cutoff.
This Grapes Westlands Solar Park project joins three others either permitted, under construction or filed with Kings County including Aquamarine and Westlands Solar Blue that filed an application for a 250MW project on 1950 acres located on Laurel in western Kings County.The same developer filed for a project called Chestnut, a 150 MW solar farm on 980 acres located between the Avenal Cutoff and Hwy 41.
Westlands Solar Park has stated they hope to phase the build up to 2000MW of power in the area on salt damaged land no longer fit for farming. They hope to have 700MW on line by 2021.
The 2.7GW Westlands Solar Park would be one of the world’s largest solar power plants.The solar panels will be located across 20,000 acres of marginal land in western Fresno and Kings counties. Water shortages, salt and selenium contamination make this location attractive- astride the state’s largest power line corridor- for more solar development.
The project-repurposing of spent farmland for solar generation – is supported by major environmental groups because of its low impact on endangered species unlike some pristine desert projects. Several environmental and animal protection groups, including Defenders of Wildlife, Sierra Club, National Resources Defense Council and the Centre for Biological Diversity, have extended their support.