Abengoa Solar, a Spanish power company, is planning to use 3 square miles of Arizona desert for one of the largest solar power plants in the world. Construction on the 280-megawatt plant is expected to begin as early as next year and could be producing solar energy by 2011.

In the location of the proposed plant, it can get as hot as 120 degrees in the summer. Unlike most solar energy plants, however, Solana will use thousands of giant mirrors to harness the sun’s heat, not light, for power by heating up liquids which will spin turbines. This method is essentially the same as that used in a coal power plant, but without the pollution. “We receive the heat from the sun, and we use a fluid that becomes very hot. And we can keep it hot for a long time and release that heat for a long time,” said Abengoa CEO Santiago Seage.

Up to 70,000 homes will be supplied by the Solana Generating Station at full capacity. Arizona Public Service, the largest electric utility in Arizona, currently produces 1½ percent of its energy from renewable sources. The new plant will bring APS to around 5 percent in 2011, which is important since Arizona regulators are requiring utilities to get 15 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2025. “There is no reason that Arizona should not be the Persian Gulf of solar energy,” remarked Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano.

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