California’s governor has certified the Cornucopia Hybrid Solar Project using the California Environmental Quality Act’s (CEQA) judicial streamlining provision, speeding up the construction of 300 MW of solar along with 300 MW of battery storage. Once a project is certified, courts must decide on CEQA challenges to it within 270 days to the extent feasible, while still allowing those challenges to be heard.
BayWa r.e. Americas, a US subsidiary of a German-based renewable energy company, is building the hybrid solar-battery storage project in Fresno County, California, which is expected to power around 300,000 homes in the area.
Cornucopia’s solar energy generation facility is planned to consist of solar photovoltaic (PV) modules, a substation and switching station, an energy storage system, and two prefabricated structures to be used for maintenance and operation services and for control services. The solar modules would be connected to power inverters to convert sunlight into usable alternating current (AC) power. The energy would then be transferred from the inverters to a substation before the power is sent to the local electrical grid. The substation is expected to include an electrical control building and would tie into the switching station via a new transmission line.
The energy storage system at Cornucopia will be made up of battery storage comprising lithium-ion, flow or sodium sulfur batteries. That system would be located adjacent to a new Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) switching station, with a footprint of about 12 acres in size. Since the site will still be subject to certain agricultural land-use rules, the project’s developers also plan for it to be agrivoltaics, with sheep grazing alongside solar panels to help manage vegetation.
A project’s selection for a judicial streamlining certification can reduce lawsuit-related delays from three to five years to around 270 days, said the governor’s office. This process was authorized by a 2021 state law allowing the governor to make those certifications, and a 2023 state law expanding the list of eligible projects to include certain green infrastructure projects.
Only 24 projects have been certified under the law so far. The certification came a few days after California regulators approved new maintenance and operation standards for battery storage resources, including a requirement for facility owners to develop emergency response and emergency action plans, following a January 2025 fire at Vistra Energy’s Moss Landing battery facility in California.
Construction of the Cornucopia hybrid project is expected to begin at the end of 2027 and be completed by mid-2030.