Renewable Energy Plants

Most of the solar electricity produced in California comes from distributed generation such as by residential and commercial rooftop installations of photovoltaic panels. At the opposite end of the size spectrum are giant factory-like installations, whose existing and planned facilities choose from three types of concentrating thermal power technologies.

Existing Solar Plants

By far the largest solar plants operating in Califorina are the Solar Electricity Generating Systems (SEGS) facilities built in the 1980s.

plant name	location	completion date	footprint area	peak turbine power	annual energy production
		year	square kilometers	megawatts	gigawatt-hours
SEGS I,II	Daggett	1985	0.248	44	49
SEGS III-VII	Kramer Junction	1986-88	0.248	150	343
SEGS VIII,IX	Harper Lake	1989-90	0.948	160	263

Planned Solar Plants

A handful of large companies have secured long-term contracts with the states major utilities for purchase of electricity from plants that are planned. Based on published reports of the land area that these plants will occupy, and the peak power output they are expected to generate, we have computed the plants' peak efficiency: the ratio of peak power output to land area.

facility	location	footprint area		peak output power	peak efficiency
		square miles	square kilometers	megawatts	watts per square meter	efficiency
Solar 1	Mojave desert ease of Barstow	7	18.21	500 - 850	128.6	12.86
Solar 2	Imperial Valley near El Centro	3	7.77	300 - 900	46.7	4.67
Ivanpah 1	Mojave desert near Nevada and west of Ivanpah Dry Lake	1.3	3.367	100	29.70	2.97%
Ivanpah 2	San Bernardino County 4.5 miles southwest of Primm, Nevada	1.3	3.367	100	29.70	2.97%
Ivanpah 3	Township 17N, Range 14E, and Township 16N, Range 14E	2.5	6.475	200	30.88	3.08%
Mojave Solar Park 1	Mojave desert near Nevada and west of Ivanpah Dry Lake	9	24	553	23.04	2.30%
High Plains Ranch II	Carrizo Plain northwest of California Valley	3.5	9.065	250	27.58	2.76%
Topaz Solar Farm	San Luis Obispo County	9.5	24.605	550	22.35	2.24%