Floating Solar Array Latest Innovation in California’s Next-Generation Clean Energy Frontier 

By Oren Peleg 

In late 2022, the city of Petaluma, California, approved plans for the construction of a solar array at the Ellis Creek Water Recycling Facility. While a 5-megawatt solar array isn’t unusual, this one sits on top of the facility’s reservoir – a floating solar array. 

Such innovative technology and out-of-the-box thinking are examples of how Northern California continues to craft future-forward solutions to tackle its current clean energy challenges. 

And IBEW workers have been there building out every part of the groundbreaking grid.  

“We’ve been doing it since 1891; nothing is new to us,” said IBEW Local 551 Business Manager John McEntagart. 

When the install in Petaluma is completed, it will be the largest floating solar facility in California, providing thousands of work hours for Local 551 and employing union members who live in the region rather than relying on an out-of-state workforce. 

“It’s a win-win for everybody,” McEntagart said. 

Solving a Power Bottleneck Problem 

A transmission system bottleneck in Central California has largely prevented low-cost, green power (solar and wind) generated in Southern California from reaching Northern California, said McEntagart. As a result, PG&E customers pay significantly higher rates than their SoCal Edison counterparts. 

Projects like the floating solar array at the Petaluma water treatment plant demonstrate how California sits at the cutting edge of clean energy in the United States, and why IBEW has been the trusted workforce to transform those blueprints into power-generating reality. 

“The foundational skills that our members gain through their apprenticeship training are the same electrical skills needed to build clean energy projects,” said Micah Mitrosky, IBEW’s Ninth District International Representative, Renewable Energy & Clean Transportation. 

California has created much of the clean energy tech. “A lot of these renewable energy policies and requirements started in the West, and then we saw other parts of the country start to adopt clean energy policies and requirements,” Mitrosky added. 

A continuing concern, though, is that if new renewable energy projects stall in California, and if the state’s transmission bottleneck is not resolved, jobs and economic benefits could be exported to states like Arizona and Utah. 

Green Future for the Golden State 

The good news is that a lineup of new renewable energy projects is slated to go online across California, and IBEW will be there to provide the trained, skilled, local workforce to keep paving that new-energy future. 

Those projects include a proposed geothermal plant in Imperial County along the so-called “Lithium Valley”, and the Turlock Irrigation District, which recently had IBEW build solar panels over its canals, the first of their kind.  

“We are undertaking every effort at the federal level to preserve the tax credits that have the labor provisions for renewable energy projects,” said Gretchen Newsom, IBEW Ninth District’s Political Coordinator and International Representative. 

Five offshore wind farms across the Northern and Central coast are under development, helping move California closer to its mandated goal of 100-percent renewable energy by 2045. 

“California is still full steam ahead on offshore wind,” said Mitrosky. 

“We need to organize this work now,” Newsom said. “You’re going to see California specifically, and much of the West Coast beyond it, continuing to invest in renewable energy projects, continuing to combat greenhouse gas emissions, and continuing to take a greener outlook on things.”