Power outages lasting minutes to hours at the Nick C. DeGroot Water Treatment Plant in Oakdale, Calif., were causing treated water storage problems — and the facility has a pair of storage tanks each holding 3 million gallons.The board of directors of South San Joaquin Irrigation District, which operates the facility, wanted plant personnel to get comfortable with solar energy and eventually apply it across the district. A solar system seemed the ideal solution to DeGroot’s problems.Together with Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) and Denver-based Conergy Americas, the district planned the Robert O. Schulz Solar Farm, a solar array estimated
