By Pete Danko | EarthTechling
It’s the equivalent of, oh, about 50,000 home solar photovoltaic systems – 749,088 panels. They’re all in place now in San Luis Obispo County at the 250-megawatt California Valley Solar Ranch.
SunPower, builder and the operator of the plant for owner NRG, said crews finished the job last week. The panels are on horizontal single-axis trackers that boost efficiency by keeping the panel square with the sun as it moves east-to-west across the sky.
SunPower said it expects final commissioning of the plant “in the coming weeks,” and with that California will have a new leader as largest PV power generator in the state. But it won’t be for very long. In the same region of Central California – the Carrizo Plain, a stretch of grassland about 50 miles long and 10-15 miles wide separated from the Central Valley by a modest line of peaks called the Temblor Range – First Solar is building a 550-megawatt PV plant, called Topaz, for MidAmerican. Then there’s the 579-megawatt Antelope Valley Solar Projects, about an hour north of Los Angeles.
