This guarantee will be used to construct Solana, the largest solar plant in the world. Solana will include six hours of thermal energy storage, allowing it to produce electricity when it’s cloudy or after sunset; the plant will thus be able to satisfy the peak demand period for electricity in this region during summer months. The plant will be located about 100 kilometers (70 miles) southwest of Phoenix, near Gila Bend, Arizona, and have capacity of 250 megawatts. This will produce enough electricity to serve 70,000 homes, and prevent the emission of 475,000 tons of CO2 per year.

Abengoa Solar is developing a number of projects in the southwestern United States, and recently signed a power purchase agreement in California to sell the electricity that is generated by a solar plant located in the Mojave desert, about 150 kilometers (100 miles) northeast of Los Angeles.

The company is currently building solar plants that will generate 350 megawatts of electricity around the world, and has 142 megawatts of capacity already in production. It is the only company in the world that operates both power tower CSP plants and trough plants. Solana will be Abengoa Solar’s tenth CSP plant worldwide.