Warren Buffett buys solar project in SLO County

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• Warren Buffett buys Carrizo solar farm

  Warren Buffett buys Carrizo solar farm

  Billionaire investor Warren Buffett now owns a piece of San Luis Obispo County.

  First Solar announced this week that it has entered into an agreement to sell its 550-megawatt Topaz Solar Farm in the Carrizo Plain to MidAmerica Energy Holdings, which is owned by Buffett’s multinational holding company Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

  First Solar will continue to build and operate the huge photovoltaic plant, but MidAmerica will be the owner. The solar farm is estimated to be worth more than $2 billion.

• Bouquets and Brickbats: Expedite permit for flood control

  Bouquets and Brickbats: Expedite permit for flood control

  You’ve gotta love our wacky regulatory system. To prevent the flooding of homes in Oceano, the county Board of Supervisors has OK’ed a plan to deliberately breach the Arroyo Grande Creek levee in such a way that valuable farmland would be inundated instead.

  That would happen only in an emergency, though county staff is pessimistically predicting that it’s bound to occur at some point, given current conditions. Among other problems, athree-mile-long flood control channel has become so choked with sediment that it has lost an estimated 85 percent of its capacity, according to a 1999 study.

  The county is trying to get a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that would allow removal of some of that sediment, but it could be spring before the permit is issued. And in the meantime, valuable farms are sitting ducks.

• Solar panels sprouting on the Carrizo

  Solar panels sprouting on the Carrizo

  Construction activity is ramping up on two large commercial solar projects on the Carrizo Plain.

  More than 400 workers are employed building the two projects which, when complete, will produce 800 megawatts of power. Work on both projects began late last year, and construction is expected to take three years to complete.

  Furthest along is the 250-megawatt California Valley Solar Ranch by SunPower Corp., near the Kern County line. More than 360 workers are on site, said Ingrid Ekstrom, a SunPower spokeswoman. Work has progressed to the point that photovoltaic panels are being installed on tens of thousands of metal posts. As of the end of January, 30,390 panels had been installed, which is enough to generate nearly 13 megawatts of power, Ekstrom said.

• Top 10 Stories of 2011: No. 7 — SLO County turns into a solar system

  Top 10 Stories of 2011: No. 7 — SLO County turns into a solar system

  The isolated, sparsely populated and bucolic corner of San Luis Obispo County north of the Carrizo Plain National Monument is being transformed into one of the world’s premier centers for turning sunlight into electricity.

• Work ramps up at Topaz Solar Farm

  Work ramps up at Topaz Solar Farm

  Thousands of posts that will hold solar panels being installed