Energy Efficiency
AND RENEWABLE ENERGY
California’s farming families have been early adopters of energy efficiency and renewable projects.
Climate-smart farms are reducing their overall energy use while increasingly adopting renewable energy sources such as solar.
Dairy farms, packing houses, and other agricultural and food processing operations continue to upgrade thousands of light fixtures to energy efficient LED bulbs, greatly improving energy efficiency. Energy efficient lighting alone saves millions of kWh of electricity per year. To put that in perspective, one house uses about 893 kWh per month. So a savings of even 1 million kWh would power nearly 100 California homes for a year.
California’s farms have also embraced on farm renewable energy.
In fact, some of California’s most ambitious farms have set out to power 100% of the electricity needed for their operations with renewable resources, ahead of the state’s own ambitious timeline. California farms, ranches, and food production operations have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in solar installations, helping the state meet it’s ambitious renewable energy and climate goals.
For example, in the dairy sector alone more than 200 California dairy farms have installed solar energy producing more than 250 million kWh of energy. More than 200 California dairies are also turning manure into clean, renewable energy, and carbon negative transportation fuel.
Food and fiber processing facilities have increasingly turned to on-site solar to reduce their carbon footprint.
