Welcome to the future of energy, and it sure is beautiful!
Set across desert landscape like some great Anish Kapoor installation. There is no smoke, smog or fumes in sight. Just clean bright sunlight and 300,000 glorious mirrors, each 7 feet high and 10 feet wide.
Each mirror is controlled by computers which focus the Sun's light to the top of 120m high towers, then water is turned into steam to power turbines. This is solar energy on the grandest scale, bigger than anything ever built before.
Located in the USA in Ivanpah Dry Lake which is near the Californian/Nevada border, the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System has the ability to produce 392 megawatts (MW) of solar power. That's enough electricity to provide 140,000 California homes with clean energy and avoid 400,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, equal to removing 72,000 vehicles off the road.
This enormous solar plant is jointly owned by NRG Energy, BrightSource Energy and interestingly, Google. You can even take a virtual tour of the site using Googles street view technology.
It only opened for business recently and if this is the energy of tomorrow, the future sure looks bright!