Sacramento County approves solar project. Here’s how many homes it could power

The Sacramento County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved a permit for a 372-acre solar development project on agricultural land near Wilton, the same day that the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service officially announced that 2023 was the hottest year on record. The project would power thousands of homes.

The new 50-megawatt solar project, Sloughhouse Solar, is being developed with the Sacramento Municipal Utility District and D.E. Shaw Renewable Investments by the intersection of Meiss and Dillard roads. SMUD has a goal to reach zero carbon emissions by 2030. Climate change is primarily driven by carbon dioxide emissions.

The design will allow sheep to graze the land under and around the panels. Additionally, Jim Gillum, a consultant on the project, told the board that the development would provide 130,000,000 kilowatt-hours per year. The developer says it would power 12,000 homes.

Experts have said the climate crisis is accelerating, with the previous hottest year on record in 2016. Last July, county staff recommended the supervisors push a previous 2030 deadline to achieve carbon neutrality back by 15 years, to 2045. The supervisors ultimately didn’t vote to delay the deadline to 2045, but also didn’t commit to sticking with 2030, instead asking county staff to return with more information.

“We talk a lot about an existential threat,” new board chair Patrick Kennedy, who represents the 2nd District covering south Sacramento and Vineyard, said Tuesday. Kennedy was the sole board member to back the 2030 carbon neutrality goal in July. “If this is truly the crisis that is facing not just our community but our entire globe, we have to take pretty dramatic action in order to meet our goals.”

Gillum said the project would be landscaped with native plants, including live oaks, western redbuds, coyote brush and coffeeberry.

The county’s planning commission recommended approving the project in October. The Cosumnes Community Planning Advisory Council voted against the solar development 5-1, saying that the development did not reflect the values of the community and calling it an industrial use. The council expressed a preference that the area remain purely agricultural. A solar development — albeit a much smaller one that produces 10 megawatts — already exists on the site for the Sloughhouse project.

The development would supply power to adjacent communities as well as more far-flung SMUD customers.

Sacramento County is still working on its Climate Action Plan, which will lay out formal goals around addressing a rapidly warming planet on the local level.

That plan is separate from a 2020 climate emergency declaration, which had set the goal for climate neutrality for 2030. In July, the board heard from county staff that the goal was unfeasible.

At the July meeting when the supervisors discussed the previous 2030 carbon neutrality goal, Kennedy said, “We can’t afford not to make those investments. We’re late. We’re far behind where we should be if we’re going to make a real difference in our future generations and even our current generations.”