The sun shines more than 270 days of the year in Fresno, CA home of the Corn Nuts brand roasting and packaging facility. That sunshine, combined with the rich alluvial soil of the San Joaquin River valley, makes for a great place to grow the Peruvian Cusco hybrid corn that creates those distinctive extra-large kernels. But the farmers aren’t the only ones who employ energy from the sun. Thanks to visionary managers, those sunny days now power nearly all of the Corn Nuts facility’s activity — even after the sun goes down.
The Corn Nuts brand began its solar journey in 2017 when it made an agreement with SolarCity to build a large solar array. The plant agreed to provide a four-acre lot they weren’t using adjacent to the facility and SolarCity would fund the capital investment. In return, the plant would promise to buy the power from the facility at a fixed rate for 20 years. In the end, the project would become an example of one of the most high-tech, state-of-the-art solar projects ever developed and one of the five biggest in the state.