By Colin Payne / Source: Inhabitat

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In a radical shift from dirt farm to solar farm, a California property that was once an abandoned farm is now producing 155 megawatts of clean energy that’s cheaper than fossil fuels. Clean Technica reports that 8minuteenergy’s Springbok 2 solar farm in central California is producing power at $58 per megawatt hour, down from the anticipate rate of $58.65/MWH, beating the price of both coal and natural gas power in California.

As Clean Technica points out, using farmland for purposes other than growing food is often considered to be in poor taste, but with the ongoing drought in the state, California is trying to figure out how best to use its available land. Springbok 2 is just one of about nine similar “farm-to-solar” projects around Lemoore, California – where officials are trying to stop the loss of ground water resources and create taxpaying jobs.

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Even the navy is pitching in on the solar revolution, as the Naval Air Station Lemoore is planning to have a solar plant on it grounds in what could be the largest project of its kind on Department of Defense property.

Springbok 2 isn’t the first project like this for 8minuteenergy. The company also built its 26-megawatt Redwood solar farm project on “low productivity” farmland in Palo Alto, California earlier this year.

Turning disused land into space for solar power production would seem to be a bit of a worldwide trend. Back in November, China began building a giant 4-gigawatt solar power facility in the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear reactor site.

Read more @ Inhabitat