Permits were expedited for clean energy. Locals feel sidelined

Western Fresno County is a test case for fast-track strategy

- By Hailey Branson-Potts

Photographs by TOMAS OVALLE For The Times CANTUA CREEK, population 500, will be near one of the world's largest solar and battery storage projects.

The fallowed farmland — too dry, salty and barren to grow crops stretches across a remote, sunbaked expanse crisscrossed by rutted dirt roads.

Soon, roughly 15 square miles of these retired agricultural fields in western Fresno County will hold one of the world's largest solar and battery energy storage projects — a behemoth capable of powering some 850,000 homes for four hours.

The Darden Clean Energy Project, approved by the California Energy Commission in June, is the first development to be fast-tracked under a 2022 state law that allows large renewable energy projects to be reviewed and permitted without sign-off from county and municipal governments.

The Opt-In Certification Program, as it is called, is meant to sidestep the kind of local pushback that can drag on for years. And the Darden project's approval was touted by Gov. Gavin Newsom as a major victory in helping the state meet its ambitious climate goal of using 100% clean energy by 2045.

But in rural western Fresno County — where energy firms have planned multiple large-scale battery and solar projects — many residents feel blindsided. They have raised serious questions about who benefits and who gets left behind when major projects are fast-tracked.

Espi Sandoval, a board member for the nonprofit Rural Communities Rising, a western Fresno County advocacy group, said the impoverished, mostly Latino area has long been exploited by corporate agriculture and now is playing catch-up as it finds itself suddenly at the forefront of California's energy transition.