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)

 

Copyright: John C. Bean (WeCanFigureThisOut.org)