Growing Magazine - Harold Edwards says the time was finally right for the Limoneira Co. to be powered by the sun. “That all falls nicely into the concept of sustainability,” says Edwards, CEO and president of Limoneira, a corporate farm of about 7,000 acres headquartered in Santa Paula, Calif. It also falls into the concept of doing the right thing for shareholders, because the $8 million solar project has secured a low electricity rate for the company for at least the next couple of decades.

Edwards explains that the solar project, which came online late in summer of 2008, is a 1-megawatt installation of solar panels that ties into the existing Southern California Edison grid. It will supply about a third of the power used annually at Limoneira’s 200,000-square-foot facility in Santa Paula, which boasts enough cold storage for about 500 rail cars of fruit and features a large packinghouse for lemons. That amount of electricity could power 200 single-family homes for a year, so the farm is saving that amount of electricity for the community.

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