California Converted Its Irrigation to Save Water. So Why Is Farm Energy Use Going Up?
More than half of California's irrigated farmland now runs on drip or microirrigation. The water savings are real — but on-farm electricity use has not fallen. In many cases it has risen. And as California's agricultural electricity rates continue to climb, energy has become one of the most significant and least-managed operating costs in irrigated agriculture.
This is a fully interactive, chart-driven piece — maps, stacked areas, toggleable layers, and a duck-curve visualization from live CAISO data.
Arian Aghajanzadeh
Founder of Klimate Consulting. 10 years of experience in energy, water, and agriculture sustainability.
Related Articles
The Golden Tide: Tracking the World's Largest Seaweed Bloom
An interactive look at the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt: how it grew sevenfold, how anyone can now track it with free satellite data, and how it might be turned from hazard into resource.
![California's Water Dilemma Part 2: Water [Data] Scarcity](https://www.klimateconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/46359731042_8c9558c25c_b.jpg)
California's Water Dilemma Part 2: Water [Data] Scarcity
To modernize water management in California, accurate granular data is crucial. The current lack of comprehensive data presents a major challenge.