Credit: Lightsource bp
EPRI and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) launched a new collaborative project that aims to restore prairie land and pollinator habitat under solar arrays and along other portions of 20 acres of land at SMUD’s Rancho Seco site in Sacramento County, California. The restorative energy project is at the site of a decommissioned nuclear power plant and part of native tribes’ ancestral lands. It also supports SMUD’s 2030 Zero Carbon Plan.
The project team will create a pollinator habitat under established solar panels and measure changes in energy, soil carbon and management costs at the Rancho Seco restorative energy site. Expected outcomes include the establishment of native plant species promoting pollinator habitats and soil carbon monitoring.
Collaborators include the University of California, Davis, the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, D.E. Shaw Renewable Investments, and NovaSource Power in its four-year, multi-phase project. The 2,000-acre property is now home to the Cosumnes Power Plant, a utility-scale solar project nature preserve, a regional recreation area, and the federally protected California Tiger Salamander.
“The Rancho Seco project is a unique collaboration at the intersection of communities, biodiversity and climate-friendly energy,” said Jessica Fox, senior technical executive and conservation biologist at EPRI. “Successful demonstration could provide the blueprint for future renewable energy projects throughout the country that are restorative not just in their kilowatts, but also for local people and biodiversity.”
“We’re trying to create a model that other solar developers can follow,” said UC Davis Associate Professor Rebecca R. Hernandez, Wild Energy Center director. “This is an opportunity to stack California prairie with solar energy and begin to restore the 98% of prairie habitat that’s been lost.”
SMUD is part of EPRI’s Power-In-Pollinators initiative. Launched in 2018, the initiative is the largest collaboration of power companies in North America working to understand pollinators.
“We are excited for this project to consider multiple levels of energy including solar power, the energy needs of the biological ecosystem, and the restoration of cultural energy for our communities,” said Kathleen Ave, SMUD’s senior climate and ecosystem strategist and co-chair of the Power-In-Pollinators initiative.
News item from EPRI