The US federal government has approved a new 485 MW solar plan in Riverside County (California). This new plant will generate enough solar photovoltaic electricity to power roughly 180,000 homes.

California is a leader in solar energy, and has more installed photovoltaic capacity than any US state or Canadian province. California also has both solar photovoltaic as well as solar thermal energy farms. Since it is such a sunny state, it has the potential for over 76,000 MW of solar power from just residential rooftop panels. This would produce roughly 40% of the state’s energy needs.

Currently, California has 5 active commercial scale solar farms:

• California Valley Solar
• Desert Sunlight Solar
• Imperial Valley Solar
• Mount Signal Solar
• Topaz Solar