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India Unveils the World's Largest Solar Power Plant (aljazeera.com)
Kamuthi in Tamil Nadu, India is now home to the world's largest solar plant that adds 648 MW to the country's generating capacity. Previously, the Topaz Solar Farm in California, which was completed two years ago and has a capacity of 550 MW, held the title. Aljazeera reports: The solar plant, built in an impressive eight months, is cleaned every day by a robotic system, charged by its own solar panels. At full capacity, it is estimated to produce enough electricity to power about 150,000 homes. The project is comprised of 2.5 million individual solar modules, and cost $679 million to build. The new plant has helped nudge India's total installed solar capacity across the 10 GW mark, according to a statement by research firm Bridge to India, joining only a handful of countries that can make this claim. As solar power increases, India is expected to become the world's third-biggest solar market from next year onwards, after China and the U.S.
So that's the largest solar plant in the world and it only outputs 648 MW?
I'm having trouble finding something to compare this to since the nuclear plant near me generates 846 MW with one unit (total 1824 MW) course it was built back in 1974 at a cost of $901,500,000 so about $494,243 per MW (Back in 1974) about $2,423,384 per MW in today's dollars and this project only cost $1,047,839 per MW. Hmmmm. I wonder if you could find a way to make solar panels work at night for less than 2 mil per MW?
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
The other possible solution would be bulk energy storage.
... and a third solution is demand shifting via variable pricing. The biggest use of electricity in India is running irrigation pumps. There is no particular reason the pumps need to run everyday, so if you raise the price of electricity on cloudy days, the pumps can be idled. Problem solved.