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Resources: Utility Scale Solar Power Plants
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Corresponding Web Notes: Utility Scale Solar Power Plants (pptx / pdf / key)


The State of Solar Power in the U.S.

Source: My web note set on U.S. Energy Production & Consumption (pptx / pdf / key)

U.S. Solar Power Costs:

My web note set on Power Plant Economics (pptx / pdf / key)

U.S. Solar Photovoltaic System Cost Benchmark: Q1 2018, U.S. National Renewable Energy Lab - NREL (link / cached copy)

Solar Market Insight Report 2019 Q2, Solar Energy Industry Association - SEIA (link / cached copy)

U.S. Solar Power Growth:

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's Energy Infrastructure Update - May 2018 (link / cached copy)

Utility Scale Solar - Empirical Trends in Project Technology, Cost, Performance, and PPA Pricing in the United States – 2018 Edition, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (webpage / report / cached report)

Lists of Worldwide Solar Plants:

List of Photovoltaic Power Stations, Wikipedia (link / cached copy)

List of Solar Thermal Power Stations, Wikipedia (link / cached copy)

Concentrating Solar Projects, U.S. National Renewable Energy Lab - NREL (link / cached copy)

The preceding is a particularly useful multi-webpage site that presents data sorted by either country, project name, technology employed, or plant's operational status

I searched for a corresponding NREL list of PV Solar Projects, but was unsuccessful. Google supplied a number of promising NREL links, but all are now broken (error 404 / page not found). The Trump administration may have deliberately suppressed this information (I provide concrete evidence of their suppressing data on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in my web note set "Greenhouse Effect, Carbon Footprint & Sequestration" (pptx / pdf / key)). The most relevant NREL document I could find was this generalized (non-plant specific) report on utility scale solar PV technology:

Utility Scale PV Power Plants, Annual Technology Baseline 2017, NREL (link / cached copy)

Lists of U.S. Solar Plants:

Major Solar Projects List, Solar Energy Industry Association - SEIA, 2019 (link / cached copy)

The original (non-cached) webpage provides an interactive map displaying and identifying more than one hundred U.S. PV and CSP/Solar Thermal energy plants:

Most Commonly Used Types of PV Solar Cell:

Utility Solar Photovoltaic Capacity is Dominated by Crystalline Silicon Panel Technology, 2017, U.S. Energy Information Administration (link / cached copy)

Best Thin Film Solar Panels – Amorphous, Cadmium Telluride or CIGS? Energy Informative Org, 2015 (link / cached copy)

Cadmium Telluride Photovoltaics, Wikipedia (link / cached copy)

Copper Indium Gallium Selenide Solar Cells - Wikipedia (link / cached copy)

Solar Frontier to Supply World's Largest CIGS Solar Plant, Reuters 2017 (link / cached copy)

Catalina Solar Project, Power Technology Com (link / cached copy)

CIGS is Back, Back Again, PV Magazine 2018 (link / cached copy)

Sun-Tracking vs. Non-Sun-Tracking PV Solar* Plants:

Solar Trackers, Solar Choice (link / cached copy)

Solar Tracker, Wikipedia (link / cached copy)

To Track or Not to Track - Part I, Greentech Media 2012 (link / cached copy)

To Track or Not to Track - Part II, Greentech Media 2012 (link / cached copy)

Why Solar Tracking is a Key Technology for Unlocking the Potential of Utility-Scale PV, Solar Power World Online, 2015 (link / cached copy)

Trackers Dominate U.S. Utility-Scale Solar, PV Magazine 2017 (link / cached copy)

More than Half of Utility-Scale Solar Photovoltaic Systems Track the Sun Through the Day, US Energy Information Administration 2017 (link / cached copy)

*Concentrating Solar Plants (of ALL types) MUST track!

My Data Table on Worldwide Solar Power Plants of at least 200 MW Capacity:

This and other tables are provided in the accompanying Web Notes (pptx / pdf / key)

Data sources are those given above, plus others identified in the Web Notes

The spreadsheet used to generate these tables is available at this LINK

POWER PLANT
COMPLETED
PV
ST
PLANT AREA
PLANT NAME
COUNTRY
PV TECHNOLOGY
ST TECHNOLOGY
CAPACITY



in km2




in MW

















1547
2016
X

43
Tengger Desert
China
(c-Si ?)

1515
2019
X

40
Bhadia Solar
India
(c-Si ?)

1400
2019
X

53
Pavagada
India
(c-Si ?)

1177
2019
X


Noor Abu Dhabi
UAE
(c-Si ?)

1000
2017
X

24
Kurnool Ultra Mega
India
(c-Si ?)

1000
2016
X


Dataong Solar Power Top
China
(c-Si ?)

850
2015
X

23
Longyangxia
China
(c-Si ?)

828
2018
X

24
Villanueva
Mexico
(c-Si ?)

750
2018
X


Rewa Ultra Mega
India
(c-Si ?)

690
2012
X

20
Charanka
India
(c-Si ?)

648
2016
X

10.1
Kamuthi
India
(c-Si ?)

613
2019
X


Mohammed bin Rashid
UAE
(c-Si ?)

579
2015
X

13
Solar Star
US
(c-Si ?)

552
2016
X

16.2
Copper Mountain
US
(c-Si ?)

550
2015
X

16
Desert Sunlight
US
(c-Si ?)

550
2014
X

19
Topaz
US
CdTe Thin Film

510 Thermal + 72 PV
2013-18
X
X
4.5 Tower + 6.8 Trough + 5.5 Tower
Noor Quarzazate
Morocco
(c-Si ?)
Tower + Trough + Tower
500
2014
X

23
Huanghe
China
(c-Si ?)

500
2018
X


NP Kunta
India
(c-Si ?)

500
2018
X


Three Gorges Golmud
China
(c-Si ?)

500
2018
X


Three Gorges Delingha
China
(c-Si ?)

460
2018
X

15.9
Mount Signal
US
(c-Si ?)

400
2016
X

9.3
Mesquite
US
(c-Si ?)

400
2018
X


Pirapora
Brazil
(c-Si ?)

400
2019
X

17
Ananthapurama
India
(c-Si ?)

392
2014

X
14.2
Ivanpah
US

Tower
380
2016
X


Yanchi
China
(c-Si ?)

350
2019
X

5.7
Springbok
US
(c-Si ?)

310
1984-90

X
6.5
SEGS
US

Trough
300
2015
X

2.5
Cestas
France
(c-Si ?)

300
2019
X

9.3
Techren
US
(c-Si ?)

292
2017
X


Nova Olinda
Brazil
(c-Si ?)

290
2014
X

9.7
Aqua Caliente
US
CdTe Thin Film

280
2017
X

11.7
California Flats
US
(c-Si ?)

280
2014

X
7.14
Mojave
US

Trough
280
2013

X
7.8
Solana
US

Trough
280
2014

X
7.8
Genesis
US

Trough
260
2018
X


Don Jose
Mexico
(c-Si ?)

254
2017
X


Ituverava
Barzil
(c-Si ?)

250
2017
X


Mandsaur
India
(c-Si ?)

250
2016
X

9.3
McCoy
US
(c-Si ?)

250
2016
X

11.7
Silver State
US
(c-Si ?)

250
2013
X

7.96
California Valley
US
(c-Si ?)

250
2016
X

6.82
Stateline
US
(c-Si ?)

250
2016
X

8.1
Moapa Southern Paiute
US
(c-Si ?)

246
2016
X


El Romero
US
(c-Si ?)

246
2019
X


Nikpol
Ukraine
(c-Si ?)

240
2019
X


Pokrovske
Ukraine
(c-Si ?)

240
2016
X

7.7
Escalante
US
(c-Si ?)

236
2019
X

6.1
Midway
US
(c-Si ?)

235
2016
X

8.1
Blythe
US
(c-Si ?)

235
2018
X

2.6
Setouchi Kirei
Japan
(c-Si ?)

235
2017
X

7.7
Upton Solar 2
US
(c-Si ?)

230
2015
X

8.5
Antelope Valley
US
CdTe Thin Film

212
2016
X

5.3
Roserock
US
(c-Si ?)

202
2018
X

5.1
Buckthorn
US
(c-Si ?)

200
2017
X

3
Cixi
China
(c-Si ?)

200
2019
X

8.1
GA Solar 4
US
(c-Si ?)

200
2013
X


Gansu Jintai
China
(c-Si ?)

200
2016
X

8.1
Garland
US
(c-Si ?)

200
2013
X


Gonghe I
China
(c-Si ?)

200
2018
X

6.5
Great Valley
US
(c-Si ?)

200
2016
X

7.7
Tranquility
US
(c-Si ?)

200
2012-13

X

Solaben
Spain

Trough

Trade Website / Magazine Articles about the Largest Worldwide Plants:

Warning: Despite their inclusive titles, the following two articles both list ONLY PV Plants. Further, their lists include PV Plants producing less (or even much less) power than the largest Solar Thermal Plants (yet another example of why we not only CAN but MUST "Figure This Out" for for ourselves):

The Nine Biggest Solar Power Plants in the World, PowerTechnology.Com (link / cached copy)

An Overview of the World’s Largest Solar Power Plants, Photovoltaics Magazine (link / cached copy)