It was April 2006, and the mood was celebratory at Napa Valley College. A crowd had assembled to toast the school’s new solar field — 5,600 photovoltaic panels arranged in neat rows across 5 acres of floodplain the school said couldn’t be used for much else beyond hay cultivation.

Solar installations are ubiquitous now, on desert plains, winery properties and carports. In 2006, they looked like the future.

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Rep. Mike Thompson addressed the onlookers that day, calling the project “a model and inspiration.” Then two students flipped a symbolic power switch, marking what was seen as the beginning of a new energy era for the campus.

At the time, the photovoltaic array was the fifth largest in the United States. The system could generate about 1.2 megawatts of power — roughl

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