Solar is reshaping California’s Central Valley. What happens to the rural farming communities next door?

Tucked away in California’s Central Valley lies Fresno County, one of the nation’s top agricultural producers and a fertile landscape for new solar and storage development.

It’s also home to a fast-growing, democratically elected coalition that’s making sure 36 rural communities have a voice in the clean energy conversation.

“These counties are going to be massively impacted by clean energy development, but they’ve been left behind for a hundred years as part of the agricultural economy,” Jose Antonio Ramirez, the acting executive director of Rural Communities Rising (RCR), told pv magazine USA. RCR is a newly formed nonprofit organization that aims to accelerate responsible, equitable clean energy development in Western Fresno County by serving as a model for grassroots community organizing.

Rather than taking a reactive approach to new projects, he explained, RCR hopes to bring local voices into talks with developers from the get-go and create partnerships between developers, local and state governments. That way, the benefits of the project, whether lower power bills, cleaner air or project revenues, actually stay within the community.

“Fresno county residents are paying nearly $1,000 more annually in electricity bills than the state average despite producing so much clean energy in the Valley,” Eliseo Gamino, RCR’s board vice president, told pv magazine USA, adding that it’s “unethical and unfair,” especially when energy projects on farmland can put much-needed agricultural jobs at risk.

“We want to make sure that families can sustain the same quality of life after solar is installed as they had before the new development,” he added, “And that they have a say in what kinds of benefits their community gets from a project.”

That desire for self-determined community wellbeing came clearer into focus when the California Energy Commission used a 2022 law to fast-track permitting for the Darden solar and storage project without community input.

While a community benefit agreement (CBA) was made, the community wasn’t asked where the donated $2 million funding would be most useful and the allocation process lacked transparency.

The project was, in large part, what spurred RCR to develop the Project Acceptance Community Terms (PACT) framework. Unlike traditional CBAs, which can feel piecemeal, PACT is designed as a standardized process that creates predictability for developers while guaranteeing meaningful, long-term benefits for local communities.

“The idea was to create a logical, comprehensive structure for how to create transparent, fair partnerships and advocate for CBAs,” said Antonio Ramirez, adding that residents elect their own board, define community priorities through town halls and surveys and negotiate directly with developers and counties.

Still, the process has taken time to build.

Over the last year, RCR organizers met one-on-one with more than a thousand county residents, 800 of whom filled out surveys. Communities then democratically nominated representatives to a 21-member board that includes farmworkers, teachers and local elected officials. The board is participating in six months of intensive training to understand energy policy and permitting before beginning to negotiate.

“We’re flying the airplane while we’re building it,” Antonio Ramirez added, noting that RCR is already in discussions with multiple counties about embedding PACT into permitting processes and potentially into legislation.

For Felipe Perez, RCR’s board president and city council member for Firebaugh, the PACT process goes beyond dollars. It’s about dignity.

“We don’t want free money,” he explained to pv magazine USA. “We want jobs with better pay, so we don’t just survive but have a better life. Developers need to know what our communities are worth, and they need to listen.”

“When you talk to people in these rural areas, you find they’re not particularly opposed to development itself,” added Darcy Wheeles, a principal at ArkSpring Consulting and a technical advisory partner at RCR, noting that communities want employment and economic opportunities, but they’re acutely aware of farmland retirements, shrinking water availability and a changing job market. “The opposition is more to the change in employment and the size of the project.”

While there’s a lot of discomfort and concern, she told pv magazine USA that RCR is “trying to convert short-term angst and typical responses into long-term community benefits.”

Part of that comes by working with the community, Wheeles added, and by giving them an organization that can act as a resource to answer questions and elevate their concerns to help level the playing field.

A key ingredient to success, however, can be hard-won: funding.

“For this model to be successful, there needs to be more sustainable funding from states and developer funds that are administered on a local level,” Wheeles said, adding that backing from foundations and grants can only go so far.

Community-led engagement is resource-intensive, and relying solely on developer dollars undermines local trust that their voices will be heard. That’s why RCR is pushing for state-level policies that would standardize the CBA process, create funding pools and codify expectations for developers and counties to provide certainty for developers and resources for communities.

“On a cost- and time-basis, it’s so expensive to have a fight with every development process,” Keith Bergthold, an organizing partner for RCR, noted. If you can do community organizing under a certain process, he explained, and the community is well-educated about the benefits, you can save a lot of money through that standardization.

Otherwise, he said it’ll be a litigious, expensive battle.

The model also isn’t unique to California, Bergthold explained. Yes, each region has its unique needs that may require a customized approach, but the “conflicts and issues at large” are pretty similar.

“Our towns may be small, but we have big city problems,” added Gamino, noting that RCR wants to “make sure [they’re] the advocate seeking the welfare of all the communities in the area that are being impacted by clean energy.”

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