World’s Largest Photovoltaic Power Plant in China
The 2,000-megawatt complex similar to this will be built in Ordos City, Inner Mongolia, China by 2019
First Solar, a leading maker of solar panels, based in Tempe, AZ, has announcedthat it will build an enormous, 2,000 megawatt solar power plant in China, starting next year. Bloomberg reports that it will be the largest solar power plant in the world.
Driven by falling prices for photovoltaics
The move is evidence of the falling prices for photovoltaics, which convert sunlight directly into electricity and have historically been seen as too expensive for very large power plants. But although the new power plant will be large by historical standards for solar, it’s still a tiny fraction of the world’s total energy needs, which number in the millions of megawatts. And some experts warn that the kind of solar cell that First Solar makes cannot be made in the large numbers needed to supply a large part of the world’s electricity demands.
