Two academics have registered a ballot initiative that would enable solar projects on former farmland to power nearby homes. The concept would circumvent utilities by regulating the connections as “solar family farms” rather than as electrical corporations.
Professors in law at the University of San Francisco and engineering at UC Davis crafted the proposal. They reason the installations would not further tax the overburdened transmission grid and would transition farmland fallowed under SGMA into solar developments, meeting the state’s renewable energy goals and creating green jobs in rural communities. Such “over-the-fence sales” would cheaply power electric tractors and heavy-duty trucks on farms, they claim.
State officials have raised safety concerns over the potential fire risk. The proposal must gain more than 500,000 signatures by March to qualify for the November 2024 ballot.
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In the Legislature, a bill proposing agrivoltaic grants was held in Appropriations this year. It would have tasked the California Energy Commission, in partnership with CDFA, with allocating awards to support research and development of such projects that work in sync with agricultural practices.
Progressive groups like the California Climate and Agriculture Network and the Community Alliance with Family Farmers backed the bill.
The state had funded a similar program in 2017 with $10 million from cap-and-trade revenues. But many research questions remain over the viability of maintaining productive cropland alongside such projects.
