Country United States Commission date 2015 Nameplate capacity 550 MWp Construction began 2011 | Status Operational Type Flat-panel PV Site area 16 km² | |
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Location Riverside County, California Address Desert Center, CA 92239, USA Owners NextEra Energy Resources, GE Energy Financial Services, Sumitomo Group Similar Topaz Solar Farm, Solar Star, Genesis Solar Energy Pr, Silver State South Solar Proj, Solar power plants in t | ||
First solar desert sunlight solar farm
The Desert Sunlight Solar Farm is a 550 megawatt (MWAC) photovoltaic power station approximately six miles north of Desert Center, California, in the Mojave Desert. It uses approximately 8.8 million cadmium telluride modules made by the US thin-film manufacturer First Solar. As of Fall 2015, the Solar Farm has the same 550 MW installed capacity as the Topaz Solar Farm in the Carrizo Plain region of Central California, making both of them tied for the second largest completed solar plants by installed capacity.
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Project details
Project construction took place in two phases, both of which are supported by power purchase agreements.
Phase I has a capacity of 300 MW, which will be sold to Pacific Gas & Electric Company. Phase II has a capacity of 250 MW, which will be sold to Southern California Edison. The project was expected to involve more than 550 construction jobs in Riverside County, California. The project was built on over 6 square miles (16 km2) of creosote bush-dominated desert habitat near Desert Center next to Joshua Tree National Park. Construction began in September, 2011 and final completion was in January 2015.
The $1.46 billion in loans for the project are partially guaranteed by DOE and will be funded by a group of investors led by Goldman Sachs Lending Partners, which submitted the project under the Financial Institution Partnership Program (FIPP), and Citigroup Global Markets Inc. as co-lead arranger.
Environmental issues
Clean energy advocate John Podesta, in a speech on large-scale solar facilities and desert solar noted, "So even as we look to expand clean energy production on public lands and in public waters, we must keep the day-to-day work of environmental protection in mind. Renewable energy projects can still disrupt the natural environment if put in the wrong places and if proper precautions are not taken—an outcome fundamentally at odds with the reasons we’re developing clean energy in the first place."
In 2012 the National Parks Conservation Association issued a report identifying three desert solar power plants sited within five miles of National Parks in the California Desert as projects that they suggest should not have been approved in their locations, including the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm. The group cites damage to visual resources, and impacts on desert species.