At Medeiros and Son Dairy, a family farm located in Hanford, California, solar power will be another thing to “harvest.” Calcom Solar is now installing a 1.1MW solar power system using NEXTracker’s technology at the farm, and expects to complete in this Summer.

Dairy business takes constant evaluation and assessment to ensure the operation and team is working as efficiently as possible. The solar power system will be operationally and financially helpful to Medeiros and Son Dairy farm, and it will make the farm more sustainable.

"We're extremely focused on improving efficiencies across the entire farm,” said Brian Medeiros. “Solar is one of those crucial tools that makes a lot of sense. It helps us to reduce our energy costs and improve our triple bottom line."

The 1.1MW of solar power generating facility will significantly lower Medeiros’ operational costs by saving approximately US$320,000 annually on utility bills. In addition, the solar array will help provide financial certainty by delivering more than US$ 8 million in utility savings over the next 25 years. Furthermore, the solar system will significantly reduce CO2 emission —the equivalent of buring 1.6 million pounds of coal or using 166,000 gallons of gasoline per year, helping in California’s efforts to mitigate climate change.

“Medeiros will take a huge step towards becoming a net-zero, sustainable dairy beginning in the third quarter of 2015,” noted CalCom Solar CEO Nic Stover. CalCom Solar will be breaking ground on 12 new PV projects at farms in the next two months.

This new PV array deployment leverages Net Energy Metering Aggregation (NEMA), affording CalCom the ability to install Medeiros' solar array where it can return dividends on once unproductive ground.

(Photo Credit: Medeiros and Sun Dairy's Facebook Page)