California’s largest agricultural water district wants to turn a growing water crisis into an economic pivot.
The Valley Clean Infrastructure Plan aims to repurpose tens of thousands of acres of water‑starved farmland in California’s San Joaquin Valley into a massive solar‑and‑battery network, producing power for the state’s grid, lowering energy costs for farmers, and creating a new economic lifeline as groundwater rules force fields to fallow.
“This is not only the largest project in California, or the United States,” said Jeff Fortune, president of the Westlands Water District board. “This will be the largest project in the world.”
If built out, the network could add roughly 21 gigawatts of solar and battery capacity across about 136,000 acres of repurposed farmland — an energy buildout on par with all the large‑scale solar California has on the grid today, district documents show
Westlands delivers federally and state-supplied water to farms across a 1,000‑square‑mile stretch of western Fresno and Kings counties — one of the most productive agricultural regions in the country. But decades of water shortages and new state groundwater limits are forcing growers to rethink how that land can be used.
For years, Westlands growers relied on surface water deliveries from the Central Valley Project and deep groundwater pumping. Both are now heavily constrained.
Under California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, aquifers in the San Joaquin Valley must reach sustainability by the early 2040s — sharply limiting how much water farmers can pump. District officials say that could force growers to fallow hundreds of thousands of acres.
“Our hand is forced,” Fortune said. “Everyone’s in the same sinking ship together.”
Much of the land targeted for solar development is already difficult or impossible to farm because of drainage problems and soil salinity. Instead of leaving those acres idle, the district is pitching solar as a replacement crop.
“The way we look at it is as a new crop,” said Jeremy Hughes, a Westlands board member and fifth‑generation farmer. “We’re harvesting the sun and producing electricity.”
Westlands is not becoming a utility. Instead, a state law passed in 2024 allows the district to generate electricity, build transmission, and sell power through California’s grid operator.
Under the plan:
Running pumps and moving water is energy‑intensive, Hughes said, and reducing those costs could help keep farming viable.
“The district is going to get lower power costs to supply the water,” Fortune said. “And growers are going to get the option of lower‑cost power on their end.”
Westlands would also finance and build new high‑voltage transmission lines to move electricity to market, easing congestion between Northern and Southern California.
“In that sense,” Hughes said, “this is a transmission play, not a solar play. The solar is doable because of the transmission.”
California needs far more clean electricity, even as water shortages are pulling land out of agricultural production.
Supporters say the Valley Clean Infrastructure Plan tackles both problems at once: helping farmers survive strict groundwater rules while delivering large amounts of clean power to the state.
“This hits all those boxes,” said Ross Franson, president of farming at Woolf Farming & Processing, which already hosts solar projects on its land. “Energy transition, water issues, power demand — it’s all coming together here.”
But for communities built around farm labor, the shift raises concerns.
With irrigation shrinking and solar replacing crops, longtime farmworker Rosa Ramirez worries about disappearing jobs. “Back in the ’90s, they used to have tomato fields, lettuce, onions,” she said in Spanish. “Now there’s less and less.”
Her son, Danny Garcia, asked a question local leaders say they still can’t fully answer: “Is she going to work there with the solar system? She has no experience.”
The land proposed for solar development — about 136,000 acres — is vast.
That’s:
At that scale, Westlands says it can justify building its own transmission system: roughly 70 miles of high‑voltage power lines and five substations that connect to California’s statewide grid.
State law requires the project to include a community benefits plan, aimed at delivering jobs, investment, and environmental improvements to nearby towns — many of which face high unemployment, unsafe drinking water, and some of the state’s highest electricity bills.
“We believe everybody should participate,” said Espi Sandoval of Rural Communities Rising, a coalition of western Fresno County communities. “Residents want to be part of conversations before decisions are made.”
But some local leaders worry benefits will come too late.
Westlands officials have said community funding tied to solar revenues would likely begin years after construction starts, once projects are operating — a timeline that concerns residents already struggling with rising bills and fewer farm jobs.
None of the solar farms or transmission lines has been built yet. The project is expected to roll out over the next decade or more, with individual solar developments advancing under a districtwide environmental framework approved in late 2024.
Major questions remain unresolved, including:
For Westlands growers, the plan is less about leaving agriculture than adapting to its limits.
“If we could keep farming all of it, we would,” said Rebecca Kaser, whose family has farmed in the district for generations. “This is a tool in the toolbox to at least stay farming with the little that we can.”
This story was originally published at the USA TODAY Network’s Visalia Times-Delta. To read the unabridged story, go here.

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