Five of the biggest solar plants

1The 2000 MW (2 GW) Shakti Sthala, Pavagada, Karnataka, India: Spread across almost 53 square kilometres and five villages, the 2,000 MW capacity Pavagada solar farm will produce enough electricity to power around 700, 000 households.

2

The 1000 MW Kurnool Ultra Mega Solar Park,

Andhra Pradesh, India: This solar park became operational in May 2017 and within five months had generated >800 million units of energy and saved over 700,000 tonnes of CO2. The mega park is situated on land spanning 23 square kilometres.

3

The 850 MW Longyangxia Dam Solar Park,

Qinghai province of China: The 850 MW Longyangxia Dam Solar Park occupies more than 25 square kilometres, and boasts four million solar panels. The plant was the world’s largest in February 2017. The park generates around 220 GWh of electricity per year, enough to power 200,000 households. 4 The 648 MW Kamuthi solar farm, Tamil Nadu, Southern India: This $US679 million plant which is spread over 10 square kilometres was in 2016 declared the largest solar power plant at a single location. It comprises 2.5 million individual solar modules and produces enough electricity to power approximately 150,000 homes.

5

The 580 MW Noor Complex Solar Power Plant,

Sahara Desert, Morocco: The 580 MW Noor Complex is the world’s largest concentrated solar power (CSP) plant. Due for completion in 2020, it is expected to provide electricity for more than one million people. The first phase of the threepart project is the 160 MW Noor 1 which became operational in 2016 and has slashed Morocco’s annual carbon emissions by hundreds of thousands of tonnes.