In Fresno, ground-mounted solar hits 101% of expected output

In Fresno, the solar panels are not mounted on rows of metal: they are placed directly on the ground. The plant at the Northeast surface water treatment facility, commissioned in March 2026, reached 101% of its expected output, producing 862 MWh, reports Révolution Énergétique.

The site has a capacity of 1.7 MWc — its peak capacity — and relies on a 2 MWh battery to optimize solar generation. The installation serves the industrial operations of a facility that injects 30 million gallons of water (113,000 cubic meters) into the drinking water network every day.

Erthos replaces metal structures with concrete pads and a metal cable mesh that connects the panels. The arrays follow the terrain’s topography and can accommodate a slope of up to 15%. The panels are installed edge to edge, limiting wasted space, while removing the supports is intended to reduce material and labor requirements.

This architecture sacrifices tilt but gains in density. Erthos claims nearly 2 MWc per hectare for its Earth Mount Solar solution. For comparison, the Cestas plant has 1.16 MWc per hectare, with its 300 MWc spread across 258 hectares. For maintenance, the company plans to use an autonomous robot capable of cleaning up to 3.5 MWc of panels overnight with nylon brushes.

So what does this mean in practice? For a water treatment plant or a solar developer, the solution could reduce investment in support structures and concentrate more capacity on the same area. But the benefit is not better panel-by-panel efficiency: Révolution Énergétique points out that the flat installation is less favorable in that respect. The claimed density performance and savings remain Erthos’s figures, while the Fresno site is the concrete deployment documented here.