Overview
- The Erthos Earth Mount array at Fresno’s Northeast Surface Water Treatment Plant entered commercial operation in late March 2026 and has since delivered 862 MWh while averaging 101% of its expected output.
- Erthos mounts photovoltaic modules directly on the ground instead of on steel racking, which removes racking material and installation labor and lets the layout pack more generation per acre and follow slopes up to 15 percent.
- ForeFront says it adopted Erthos after 2023 inflation and supply shocks raised labor and material costs, and those avoided construction expenses helped restore the project’s economics so it could proceed.
- Under an energy services agreement, Erthos will operate and maintain the array and run nightly ErthBot autonomous cleaners that use a dry nylon brush and can service more than 3.5 MW per unit, shifting routine maintenance off the city.
- The Fresno installation is one part of a three-site, 27 MW-DC solar-plus-storage portfolio for the Department of Public Utilities that ForeFront projects will save more than $122 million in ratepayer costs through 2045.