According to the IEA (the International Energy Agency), renewable energy will account for 95 percent of the world’s new power generation capacity by 2025. It overtakes coal as the world’s largest source of electricity, with photovoltaics accounting for 60 percent of total new renewable capacity. This article will give an introduction to ten of the largest photovoltaic power plants in the world today. (Note: Rankings are based on Wikipedia.
No.10 Jinchuan Solar Park
Gansu Province Jinchuan Zhongke Grid-Connected solar farm is an operating solar farm in Ningyuanbao, Jinchuan District, Jinchang, Gansu, China. The solar park covers almost 90 km2 of semi-desert to the north west of the city, while a further cluster of projects is to the south.The solar park has now been increased to 15 plants with a combined capacity just over 1 GW. Jinchuan’s largest plant has a capacity over 200 MW.
No.9 Noor Abu Dhabi
The Nur ABU Dhabi Solar Farm is the largest single-site solar farm located in Sweehan, near ABU Dhabi. Noor translates as light in Arabic. It has 3.2 million solar panels with a total capacity of 1,177 megawatts. The plant is known to provide clean energy to 90,000 people in ABU Dhabi.
No.8 NP Kunta
NP Kunta Ultra Mega Solar Park is also known as Ananthapuram. I Ultra Mega Solar Park or Kadiri Ultra Mega Solar Park is a solar park， with a total area of 32 square kilometers (12 square miles). It is located in Nambulapulakunta Mandal, Kadiri constituency, Kadiri sub-division, Sri Sathya Sai District, Andhra Pradesh, India, 35 km from Kadiri. The total planned capacity is 1500 MW and the existing capacity is 1200 MW.
No.7 Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park
The Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park is located in Saih al-Dahal, about 50 km south of Dubai City. And it has a total area of 77 km2. It is one of the largest renewable energy projects in the world based on the Independent Power Producer (IPP) model. In addition to solar farms using photovoltaic technology, long-term projects will include concentrated solar power (CSP). The total capacity of the project is 1,313 megawatts.
No.6 Tengger Desert Solar Park
Located in Zhongwei in China’s Ningxia Autonomous region, the Tengger Desert Solar Park covers about 43 square kilometers (16.6 square miles) of open desert and supplies electricity to more than 600,000 homes.
No.5 Benban Solar Park
Benban Solar Park is Egypt’s first large-scale photovoltaic power plant, with a total capacity of 1,650 megawatts. This corresponds to a nominal output of about 3.8 terawatt-hours per year. It is located in Benban (Aswan Province) in the western desert, about 650 km south of Cairo and 40 km northwest of Aswan. Construction of the power station began in February 2018 and was completed in November 2019. The plant covers 37.2 square kilometers and costs $4 billion.
No.4 Pavagada Solar Park
Pavagada Solar Park is a solar park covering 53 square kilometers (13,000 acres) located in Pavagada Taluk, Tumkur District, Karnataka State, India. The park was completed in 2019 and has a capacity of 2,050 megawatts. The total project cost is 148 billion rupees ($2.1 billion).
No.3 Huanghe Hydropower Hainan Solar Park
Located in Hainan Prefecture, Qinghai province，China. The project is being developed by Huanghe Hydropower Development with a total investment of over US$2.2 billion. Built in five phases, it consists of 672 PV arrays with over 7 million PV modules, the total capacity is 2200MW.
No.2 Longyangxia Dam Solar Park
The Longyangxia Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam located at the entrance of the Longyangxia Gorge on the Yellow River in Gonghe County, Qinghai Province, China. The dam is 178 meters high and is used for hydroelectric power, irrigation, ice making and flood control. In 2013, a solar PV plant with a nameplate capacity of 320 MW (Phase I) was built, covering an area of 9 sq km (3.5 sq mi). A further 530-megawatt solar power plant (Phase II) was completed in 2015, covering another 14 square kilometers (5.4 square miles). And more projects were later added, making the Longyangxia Dam Solar Park, with a total capacity of 2,400 megawatts, one of the largest PV plants in the world.
No.1 Bhadla Solar Park
Bhadla solar power station is located in the Bhadla area of Jodhpur County in Rajasthan, India, which is sandy, dry and arid. The Bhadla Solar Park is the largest solar power station in the world, covering 160 square kilometers. The total capacity of the plant is 2,700 megawatts. First farms commissioned in 2018, more farms are gradually added, expected to be expanded to 3.5 GW.
