Mega-solar plants closing in on final approvals

Brightsource Energy, an Oakland, Calif.-based company, is nearing completion of a multiyear permitting process that will allow it to begin construction of a massive solar concentrating plant (just under 400 MW) as early as this fall. It will be located in California's Mojave Desert, adjacent to  Interstate 15  and about five miles west of the Nevada border. The solar thermal plant will be the largest in the world, although even larger ones are on the drawing board. The installation, with its science-fiction-like "power tower" collecting reflected sun rays from thousands of heliostats, will be similar to this Brightsource installation in Israel.

From Sunpluggers.com: 

A California Energy Commission committee has recommended approval of another desert solar power project, raising to about 2,100 megawatts the rated peak capacities of solar power plants now awaiting final endorsement by the full commission.

That is approximately equal to the entire U.S. solar electric production capacity at the end of last year, which totaled an estimated 2,108 megawatts, including photovoltaic and concentrating solar technologies, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association's "Year in Review 2009."

Here's an overview of five very big Southern California solar projects nearing the end of a complicated permitting process.