California’s massive buildout of solar panels over the past decade has delivered vast amounts of clean energy to state residents, but with a big catch. When the sun sets, utilities have to either turn to nonrenewable energy sources or the relatively little solar power that gets stored in the state’s batteries. But this month, California’s battery problem saw a major breakthrough.

On June 11, the California Energy Commission officially approved the Darden Clean Energy Project, a sprawling solar farm and battery storage facility proposed for a stretch of fallow farmland in western Fresno County.

Darden is the first project approved under a new fast-track permitting program, which gave the commission just 270 days to finish its environmental review; Gov. Gavin Newsom lauded the news in a news release, writing that the state is “moving faster than ever before” to build up clean energy.

Darden, as proposed, will be absolutely massive — it’s meant to supplant a Kern County facility as the world’s largest battery energy storage system. Per the release, the solar section will include about 3.1 million panels, and the battery section, composed of Tesla’s Megapack 2 XL batteries, could be big enough to power 850,000 homes for four hours.

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