World's largest Solar Power Field

[Ossy]

Located in the Mojave desert near the California / Nevada border , Ivanpah is a joint effort between NRG Energy, Google, and BrightSource Energy. Bechtel is the engineering, procurement, and construction contractor on the project. The project received Google invested $168 million in the project. The project also received a $1.6 billion loan guarantee from the US Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office



Solar power towers work quite differently from photovoltaic solar panels. Ivanpah's mirrors reflect sunlight, instead of absorbing it. The light goes to the top of each tower, where it heats water in boiler pipes to more than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. That hot steam then gets piped to a turbine at the base of the tower to generate electricity.

Ivanpah began producing electricity this January. The plant powers more than 140,000 homes.