San Benito County officials have followed a wise path by encouraging private solar development while taking a hands-off policy toward public-private partnerships undertaken by other local governments.
Megawatt Energy’s proposal for a 1.5-megawatt solar photovoltaic facility at Union and Cienega roads is moving ahead toward groundbreaking. With Solargen’s much-larger proposal for a solar plant in Paicines also in the wings, the plan for the facility at the near-west side of Hollister shows that supervisors and other county leaders have a firm grasp of not only encouraging environmentally friendly energy sources, but also doing it in a financially responsible manner at a time when local governments can ill afford to take entrepreneurial risks with shrinking budgets and reserve accounts.
   The Megawatt proposal is at 2120 Cienega Road and would go on three contiguous parcels totaling 32 acres. The area works well – and the project has attracted nowhere near the kind of controversy surrounding the 399-megawatt Solargen plan – because it caters to the relatively diminutive blueprint; it is one of the more indiscrete, least-traveled parts of the county; and has limited potential for other types of development.
   Under the plan, the company would sell back energy to Pacific Gas & Electric, keeping the exchange of dollars – and prospective savings or losses – away from the wallets of taxpayers and job prospects of hard-working public employees.
   The most important factor is that the proposal likely carries no risk for taxpayers, as county leaders appear intent on requiring that Megawatt take on any potential, future liability at the site.
   County leaders have been smart to stay away from private partnerships, such as those with Clearspot Energy taken on by Hollister and local schools.
   The county, to its credit, has steered clear from such gimmicks aimed at vulnerable government entities desperate for the next big idea to save them from financial ruin. They have resisted temptation and done what local governments are meant to do – provide opportunities and reasonable limitations for private business ventures while maintaining the utmost sense of fiscal responsibility with the public’s money.
