Sunbeam Farming
By Alex Wilson 06/26/2008
A major Ventura County agricultural company that’s been in business since the horse and buggy days of the 19th century strives to lead the way toward future energy independence with a new $8 million solar power generation project.
Limoneria is building the five-acre solar array at their headquarters near Santa Paula and hopes to have it working by Labor Day.
Senior Vice President Alex Teague says it makes environmental and economic sense thanks to energy savings and tax credits. “We define ourselves as a sustainable agricultural company,” says Teague. “And the second thing is it pencils out, the cost of it versus the cost of electricity.”
Harvesting sunbeams is not much of a stretch for a company that already uses them as energy to grow lemons, avocados and other fruit.
“An orchard is an orchard, you can farm the sun, you can farm the fruit, you can farm the row crops. We just feel we’re farming the sun,” says Teague.
Construction is underway by a northern California company called Perpetual Power. Founder Mark Palamountain says it’s the first one they’ve built on a farm, and they’re calling it a “solar orchard.”
“It’s basically implanting a solar system within their lemon orchard,” says Palamountain. “So you cut the middle out of it, you can’t really see it, it’s not a nuisance, but yet it’s creating sustainability for their business.”
The system will generate about 2,000 megawatt hours of electricity a year. “Which equates to powering about 200 average U.S. homes annually,” says Palamountain. “That equates to north of $200,000 in energy savings a year for them, which is only going to go up with energy inflation.”
It also represents a big drop in emissions over other forms of generation.
“They’re going to offset 35,000 metric tons of CO2 over the 30-year life of the project,” says Palamountain.
Solar energy will help the company eliminate its carbon footprint.
“As a grower of a lot of trees that consume carbon we think we’ll be a net carbon eater, not thrower,” says Teague.
Limoneria Special Projects Manager Ely Key says the impressive solar array will be a stop on agritourism trips they lead through their scenic orchards and packing plants. Visitors will watch a video documenting its construction and be able to stand on an elevated platform for a better view. “We’ll be able to give people a little discussion and presentation on why solar energy is important and why it makes sense to do it,” says Key. Their Web site will show how much juice it’s producing on a real-time basis.
They’re also breaking new ground by what they’re doing with land underneath the solar panels.
“Common practice is to spray a bunch of herbicide around on the ground and lay gravel. But what we’re going to do is plant the area underneath the array with native vegetation. What that does is it brings more green into the area,” says Key. “It will keep dust down. If the dust gets onto the panels it will reduce energy efficiency by about 20 percent, and it just acts as another educational point to show people the benefits of using native vegetation.”
Key says he hopes other farmers follow their example. “The hope is to try and educate the public and be a leader for other companies to do the right thing,” he says.
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