Largest solar power plants in USA

Utility Scale Solar Power Plants along with photovoltaics make up majority of the solar power generation in the United States of America. Since USA was focused on research and development with regards to photovoltaics and concentrated solar power for a very long period of time thus has been one of the top countries in the world responsible for electricity generation through the Sun. 

 

According to US Energy Information Administration,  40% of U.S. Solar Energy Output is made possible  through Utility-scale fixed-tilt solar photovoltaic plants. In alignment with this,  by 2020, US comprised of 97,275 MW of installed photovoltaic and concentrated solar power capacity that makes it one of the top countries in the world with respect to total cumulative installed capacity. 

 

Although Solar PV's expansion in USA  is driven  by renewable energy resources but a 2012 report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has indicated that the availability of these required renewable energy sources for each state of the US is turning scarce over time. Regardless of this limitation, the demand for solar power has been increasing significantly. According to Solar Energy Industries Association and GTM Research, the market share of US has increased above 10% in the world’s solar power installations in the past seven years. Furthermore, another study by the U.S. department of Energy and the U.S. Energy Information Administration indicates that there has been an increase in the number of homes that have solar systems installed. They predict that the households that are currently benefiting from the rooftop solar energy would reach over 3.8 million houses by 2020. 

It is a photovoltaic power station with an installed capacity of 579MW. The plant is located in Rosamond, California. It has been fully constructed since 2013 and is currently operational by the SunPower developer. The annual output of this plant comes around 1664 GWh through the 1.7 million installed solar panels. By 2015, Solar Star was declared the world’s largest solar farm with regards to its installed capacity, as mentioned earlier that it makes use of 1.7 million solar panels that spread over 3200 acres of land. 

The solar photovoltaic power plant is considered the largest plant in Nevada due to its 552 MW capacity. Furthermore since this facility is located alongside Nevada Solar One (64 MW capacity), Boulder Solar(150 MW capacity) and Tecren Solar projects(300MW) in the Eldorado Valley thus is attributed as one of the largest photovoltaic plants in US by forming a solar generating complex of more than 1 GW.  Nevada’s largest solar power plant is owned by Sempra Generation which is a subsidiary of Sempra Energy. It started being constructed in 2010 and is fully operational at the present time. The Copper Mountain Solar Facility takes up around 16.2 square kilometers(4000 acres) of land and is responsibly for 1348 GW/h annual net output that is equivalent to 337 MW-h per acre. 

The Desert Sunlight Solar Farm is located in Riverside County, California on 16 square kilometers which is around 3900 acres of land. It is currently owned by Next Era Energy Resources, GE Energy Financial Services, and Sumitomo Group. The Solar Farm is capable of generating 1287 Annual Output GWh  by making use of approximately 8.8 million cadmium telluride modules that were installed by First Solar.  The plant has a peak capacity of 550MW and was developed in two phases. The first phase was completed in 2013 with a 300MWAC and the second phase brought the farm to its final capacity of 550 MW by January 2015.