From a distance, it looks like a deep-blue sea has formed in the middle of the Mexican desert.

But this is no mirage -- it's the largest solar park in Latin America.

With 2.3 million solar panels -- covering the equivalent of 2,200 football fields in the arid northern state of Coahuila -- the Villanueva power plant, built by Italian energy company Enel, is part of Mexico's push to generate 43 percent of its electricity from clean sources by 2024.

Arrayed across the sand in seemingly endless rows that stretch to the horizon, the solar panels are made to turn in tandem with the sun, like a giant field of shimmering metallic sunflowers.

The $650-million project came online in December and is due to produce 1,700 gigawatt hours when fully operational later this year -- enough to power 1.3 million homes.

Mexico won plaudits from environmentalists in 2015 when it became the first emerging country to announce its emissions reduction targets for the United Nations climate accord, ambitiously vowing to halve them by 2050.

To get there, it is tendering clean energy projects in which private companies produce, sell and purchase electricity on an open market.

The three projects tendered so far have generated an estimated $8.6 billion in investment. The resulting electricity will power some 6.5 million homes, according to government figures.

The Villanueva plant is the largest solar project in the world outside China and India.

Related Links
All About Solar Energy at SolarDaily.com

Tweet

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only

ESPResSo aims to make perovskite solar cells affordable
Leuven, Belgium (SPX) Apr 19, 2018
Imec has been named the coordinator of an ambitious 3-year European Union (EU) funded project, "ESPResSo" (Efficient Structures and Processes for Reliable Perovskite Solar Modules), that gathers known leaders in the field of perovskite PV technology to revolutionize Europe's photovoltaics (PV) industry. The ESPResSo consortium has been granted over 5M euro by the European Union to overcome the limitations of today's state-of-the-art perovskite PV technology, bring perovskite solar cells to the nex ... read more