California to build 'world's largest' solar farm

[a kennedy]

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- A San Francisco company said Friday it plans to build the world's largest solar power farm near Fresno, California.

The 80-megawatt farm is to occupy as much as 640 acres and upon completion in 2011 will be 17 times the size of the largest U.S. solar farm, said Cleantech America LLC, a privately held 2-year-old company.

The farm will also be about seven times the size of the world's biggest plant and double the largest planned farm, both in Germany.

Bill Barnes, CEO of Cleantech, said the scale of the Kings River Conservation District Community Choice Solar Farm will change renewable energy and make California the global leader for huge solar projects and replace Germany as the solar energy hub of the world.

"We're pretty confident that solar farms on this scale are going to have an industry-changing impact," Barnes said by telephone on Friday. "We think it's the wave of the future. This scale of project, I think, creates a tipping point for renewable energy."

Barnes declined to give the estimated construction cost of the Community Choice farm.

"We think the impact for it will be similar to the impact of the computer chip," which gained computing power once made on a large scale, Barnes said.

"So too will economies of scale like the Community Choice farm drive down the cost of solar," Barnes said.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/07/09/solar.california.reut/index.html