First Solar, Inc. is an American manufacturer of solar panels, and a provider of utility-scale PV power plants and supporting services that include finance, construction, maintenance and end-of-life panel recycling. First Solar uses rigid thin-film modules for its solar panels, and produces CdTe panels using cadmium telluride (CdTe) as a semiconductor. The company was founded in 1990 by inventor Harold McMaster as Solar Cells, Inc. and the Florida Corporation in 1993 with JD Polk. In 1999 it was purchased by True North Partners, LLC, who rebranded it as First Solar, Inc.
Solar power includes solar farms as well as local distributed generation, mostly on rooftops and increasingly from community solar arrays. In 2021, utility-scale solar power generated 115 terawatt-hours (TWh), or 2.8% of electricity in the United States. Total solar generation that year, including estimated small-scale photovoltaic generation, was 164 TWh.
The nominal power is the nameplate capacity of photovoltaic (PV) devices, such as solar cells, modules and systems, and is determined by measuring the electric current and voltage in a circuit, while varying the resistance under precisely defined conditions. The nominal power is important for designing an installation in order to correctly dimension its cabling and converters.
Topaz Solar Farm is a 550 megawatt (MWAC) photovoltaic power station in San Luis Obispo County, California, United States. Construction on the project began in November 2011 and ended in November 2014. It is one of the world's largest solar farms. The $2.5 billion project includes 9 million CdTe photovoltaic modules based on thin-film technology, manufactured by U.S. company First Solar. The company also built, operates and maintains the project for MidAmerican Renewables, a Berkshire Hathaway company. Pacific Gas and Electric will buy the electricity under a 25-year power purchase agreement. According to First Solar, it created about 400 construction jobs.
The California Valley Solar Ranch (CVSR) is a 250 megawatt (MWAC) photovoltaic power plant in the Carrizo Plain, northeast of California Valley. The project is owned by NRG Energy, and SunPower is the EPC contractor and technology provider. The project constructed on 1,966 acres (796 ha) of a 4,365-acre (1,766 ha) site of former grazing land. It is utilizing high-efficiency, crystalline PV panels designed and manufactured by SunPower. The project includes up to 88,000 SunPower solar tracking devices to hold PV panels that track the sun across the sky.
Solar power has been growing rapidly in the U.S. state of California because of high insolation, community support, declining solar costs, and a renewable portfolio standard which requires that 60% of California's electricity come from renewable resources by 2030, with 100% by 2045. Much of this is expected to come from solar power via photovoltaic facilities or concentrated solar power facilities.
Solar power in Arizona has the potential to, according to then-Governor Janet Napolitano, make Arizona "the Persian Gulf of solar energy". In 2012, Arizona had 1,106 MW of photovoltaic (PV) solar power systems, and 6 MW of concentrated solar power (CSP), bringing the total to over 1,112 megawatts (MW) of solar power. As an example, the Solana Generating Station, a 280 MW parabolic trough solar plant, when commissioned in 2013, was the largest parabolic trough plant in the world and the first U.S. solar plant with molten salt thermal energy storage.
The energy sector in Hawaii has rapidly adopted solar power due to the high costs of electricity, and good solar resources, and has one of the highest per capita rates of solar power in the United States. Hawaii's imported energy costs, mostly for imported petroleum and coal, are three to four times higher than the mainland, so Hawaii has motivation to become one of the highest users of solar energy. Hawaii was the first state in the United States to reach grid parity for photovoltaics. Its tropical location provides abundant ambient energy.
Sarnia Photovoltaic Power Plant near Sarnia, Ontario, is Canada's largest photovoltaic plant with an installed capacity of 97 MWP (80 MWAC).
The Mesquite Solar project is a 400-megawatt (MWAC) photovoltaic power plant in Arlington, Maricopa County, Arizona, owned by Sempra Generation. The project was constructed in 3 phases using more than 2.1 million crystalline silicon solar panels made by Suntech Power.
The Desert Sunlight Solar Farm is a 550-megawatt (MWAC) photovoltaic power station approximately six miles north of Desert Center, California, United States, in the Mojave Desert. It uses approximately 8.8 million cadmium telluride modules made by the US thin-film manufacturer First Solar. As of Fall 2015, the Solar Farm has the same 550 MW installed capacity as the Topaz Solar Farm in the Carrizo Plain region of Central California, making both of them tied for the second largest completed solar plants by installed capacity.
The Agua Caliente Solar Project is a 290 megawatt (MWAC) photovoltaic power station, built in Yuma County, Arizona using 5.2 million cadmium telluride modules made by the U.S. thin-film manufacturer First Solar. It was the largest solar facility in the world when the project was commissioned in April 2014.
The Antelope Valley Solar Ranch 1 (AVSR1) is a 230 megawatt (MWAC) photovoltaic power plant near Lancaster within Antelope Valley, in the western Mojave Desert, Southern California. It uses cadmium telluride modules made by the US thin-film manufacturer First Solar. The project was developed by First Solar and later bought by Exelon Corporation in 2011. The solar facility was fully commissioned in April 2014.
The McCoy Solar Energy Project is a 250 megawatt (MWAC) photovoltaic power plant near the city of Blythe in Riverside County, California. It occupies about 2,300 acres of mostly public land in the Mojave Desert. The construction uses CdTe thin film panels from First Solar, and the output is being sold to Southern California Edison under a power purchase agreement.
Mount Signal Solar, also known as Imperial Valley Solar Project, is a 794 MWp (614 MWAC) photovoltaic power station west of Calexico, California, United States, in the southern Imperial Valley, near the Mexican border. The facility is being developed and constructed by 8minutenergy Renewables in three phases, with two completed as of 2018. At full build-out, it will be one of the world's largest PV solar farms with a capacity of about 800 MWp (600 MWAC). The project has been supported by several environmental groups, as the power station was built on low productivity farmland.
The Springbok Solar Farm is a 443 MWp (350 MWAC) photovoltaic power station in the northwestern Mojave Desert, near California City in eastern Kern County, California. The facility was developed and constructed by 8minutenergy Renewables in three phases. It is among the country's largest PV solar farms with a capacity of about 440 MWp (350 MWAC).
The Beacon Solar Project is a photovoltaic power station in the northwestern Mojave Desert, near California City in eastern Kern County, California. Split into five phases, the combined Beacon solar facilities generate 250 MW of renewable energy for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP). The five phases of the project, fully completed in December 2017, include a total of 903,434 individual solar photovoltaic modules, mounted onto Nextracker single-axis tracking systems.
Gannawarra Solar Farm is a photovoltaic solar power station in the Gannawarra Shire, 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) west of Kerang in the Australian state of Victoria. It generates up to 60 MWdc electricity and exports up to 50.61 MWAC to the National Electricity Market at 66 kV.
8minute Solar Energy is an American photovoltaic (PV) developer of utility-scale PV power plants and energy storage.
The Enterprise Solar Farm is an 80 MWAC (105 MWp) photovoltaic power station located about 25 miles west of Cedar City, Utah in Iron County. The project was developed by SunEdison, built by Mortenson Construction, and commissioned in September 2016. The electricity is being sold under a 20-year power purchase agreement to Rocky Mountain Power which serves customers in Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming.
