In his second article, Philip Wolfe, the founder of Wiki-Solar, lists the world's largest individual solar photovoltaic power plants. The largest solar park and other flora will be listed in a follow-up blog.
Enel’s Villanueva project has 2,300,000 photovoltaic modules and is currently the largest solar power plant in the Americas.
Photo: Secretaría de Energía/Gobierno de México
A solar photovoltaic power station is a separate power station, designed by a single developer (or consortium), and usually has a single outlet connection to the grid. In some cases, it can be deployed on several nearby lands and/or built across multiple stages. This article focuses on the largest of these single solar power plants, focusing on power plants over 500 megawatts, and shows its position in the list released in 2019 in parentheses.
In some places, solar power plants are grouped together in solar parks or clusters to generate higher capacity. As mentioned in the introduction, these will be introduced in a later article.
In September last year, the 2,200 MWAC solar power plant put into production by the Yellow River Hydropower Development Company enabled China to regain its number one position. It covers more than 5,000 hectares of semi-desert in Gonghe County, Hainan Province, Qinghai Province, China.
In this picture, the Longyangxia Solar Hydropower Project (3) is visible to the east. This factory has been expanded for seven years and now covers such a large area (220 square kilometers) that I will list it along with the solar park in the next article, although it can be said to meet my definition of a solar power plant.
This 938 MWAC power plant in Abu Dhabi, UAE became the world's largest single solar power station after it was put into operation in June 2019 and has been maintained for 15 months.
The development project led by Marubeni and JinkoSolar was built by Sterling & Wilson, with a tilted structure, with a total array power of 1,177 MWP, facing shallow corners of east and west. As this bird's eye view of the factory shows, this configuration achieves a very high packing density on an 800-hectare site.
The UAE will also occupy a prominent position in the list of solar parks with its multi-GW development project in Dubai.
The first place in 2019 is today's third place-the so-called Yanchi Solar Park south of Gaoshawo, Yanchi District, Ningxia. Despite this name, it is not a "solar park" as we define it. The project is developed by China Minsheng New Energy and has been in operation since 2016. Its 1 GWP solar array provides an output of approximately 820 MWAC.
The highest ranking in the United States this time is No. 4 (Solar Star, which was previously ranked No. 6, is now down to No. 10). As one of the first utility-scale solar power plants in the United States, the first phase of the Copper Mountain project was first connected by Sempra Energy in 2010. When the southernmost fifth stage was put into production in March this year, the total capacity of the plant reached 816 MW.
It is located in El Dorado Valley, Nevada, between Boulder City and the searchlight, not far southeast of Las Vegas, and it surrounds Acciona's Nevada Solar One CSP project (marked in red).
In China's Shanxi Province, Datong District installed another 1 GWP project as part of China's demonstration program for projects of this size. Solar panels are distributed on the tops of mountains in a wide area, so it is difficult to identify them on satellite images.
Another project of similar scale is located in the vicinity of Yili, Xinjiang, but the distribution is so wide that I did not include it as a single factory in this list. I also do not include the further GWP project portfolio being developed around Alxa, Inner Mongolia.
Spain leaped to the 6th place on the list with the 850 MWP project of the ACS Group. The total area of the project is nearly 1,900 hectares, distributed among the three cities of Zaragoza. It will be put into use in phases in 2020.
The plant provides 730 MWAC and is owned by the Portuguese energy company Galp.
Enel Green Power's Villanueva project in Mexico has expanded from 640 MW to surpass the Kamuthi project since our 2019 list.
The plant is located in Coahuila and is one of several projects on this list that use horizontal single-axis trackers. Therefore, it has a relatively low density and occupies only more than 2,600 hectares.
India's largest independent factory has now slipped to No. 8, although the country will occupy a more prominent position in the upcoming list of solar parks.
The plant was built by Adani in 2016 and covers an area of nearly 1,200 hectares. It is located in Tamil Nadu and has an AC capacity of 648 MW.
Another Indian factory located further north in the Jaisalmer district of Rajasthan is a new addition to the list with a capacity of 600 MW. It is one of a series of projects to directly supply electricity to India's Inter-State Transmission System (ISTS) signed through bidding.
The photovoltaic project spans the Lawan and Purohitsar communities in Pokhran and was recently connected by SB Energy, which was acquired by Adani from Japan's SoftBank earlier this year.
Now the second largest solar power plant in the United States, Solar Star covers multiple sites in Antelope Valley, California.
The factory was constructed in two phases using Sunpower Corporation modules from 2013 to 2014. It has a total capacity of 585 megawatts and is owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Group.
Factory No. 11 returned to China. This multi-phase project is concentrated in the semi-desert area around Hongshagang Town in Gansu Province.
It was built by China Industrial, and currently has at least 574 MW in operation, with a final capacity of 820 MW.
Topaz is the third plant on this list, with an installed capacity of 550 MW. It was once the largest plant in the United States when it went into operation in November 2014.
It was developed by First Solar and built on multiple sites in the Carissa Plain in central California, with a total area of nearly 1,400 hectares. Coincidentally, this includes the site where the world's first multi-megawatt solar project was built in the 1980s (marked in white in this image).
We went to Brazil for the first South American project, which has become one of the largest solar power plants in the world. But this is Italy's Enel Green Energy's second project in Latin America.
The plant near São Gonçalo do Gurguéia in the state of Piaui will be constructed in three phases with a final production capacity of 765 MW. When the second phase of the project was completed in February this year, the installed capacity reached 549 MW.
The factory uses double-sided modules mounted on single-axis trackers and currently covers an area of approximately 1,300 hectares.
The last ½ GW+ solar power plant is an array of hillsides in a valley east of Yinchuan, the capital of Ningxia. The Yinchuan Xinqing project has a total installed capacity of approximately 500 MW, which will be installed in mid-2018.
The largest factory in Vietnam, located in Ea Súp, Đắk Lắk province, is below our tipping point and currently has a capacity of 480 MWAC. This is due to expansion, so it may be added to this list in the future.
Other large-scale projects under development may cause countries such as Australia, Saudi Arabia, Chile, France and Texas to join soon.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author's own views and opinions, and do not necessarily reflect the views held by Photovoltaic Magazine.
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This is the only way for lovers of our beautiful planet. Please continue to develop.
India has 2 solar parks with a capacity between 2,000 megawatts! Why did you exclude 🙃
This article deals with a single solar power plant. The solar park is introduced in a later blog: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/09/23/the-worlds-largest-solar-parks/
The Bhadla solar power plant in India is the largest power plant in the world. Why did you exclude it?
This article deals with a single solar power plant. The solar park is introduced in a later blog: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/09/23/the-worlds-largest-solar-parks/
Lack of a Moroccan power plant-510 MW Ouarzazate solar power plant
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