A Tempe-based company’s plans for a 2,000-megawatt solar power plant in Ordos City, China, were lauded by an ASU professor as a step forward for solar technology worldwide.

The company, First Solar, Inc., and Chinese officials announced an agreement last week that outlines building the power plant in four phases over a 10-year period as part of the Ordos New Energy Industry Demonstration Zone, a planned 12,000-megawatt integrated renewable energy park, according to a document provided by First Solar, Inc.

The project is larger than any existing solar power plant in the world and will generate a thousand times what ASU’s solar-power installations do.

“We’re proud to be announcing this precedent-setting project,” First Solar, Inc. CEO Mike Ahearn said in a press release. “It represents an encouraging step forward toward the mass-scale deployment of solar power worldwide to help mitigate climate change concerns.”

Harvey Bryan, a professor who teaches a renewable energy class at the Global Institute of Sustainability, said the project is a big advancement for solar technology.

“This is all part of a growing momentum to bring solar energy to the mainstream market place and be competitive with conventional energy systems,” Bryan said.

During the early phases of the project, First Solar, Inc. plans to review the possibility of building manufacturing sites in China. Bryan said he thinks this is because China wants to obtain the technology as well as the solar plant.

“First Solar has some very innovative technology,” Bryan said. “The Chinese want to have that capability to produce [First Solar, Inc.’s] product in China because they see that as where solar energy is moving.”
Though First Solar, Inc. is based in Tempe, Bryan said he doesn’t expect a big economic benefit for the area.

“It’ll do very well for the company and its shareholders, but unfortunately, First Solar does not make any product in Arizona,” he said. “We have very little manufacturing capabilities in Arizona,… which is really where the most of the employment is.”

Mark Witt, a mechanical engineering graduate student who has worked with related technology in the past, said he thinks the project is a big move for solar technology.

“It’s exactly what the market needs: more people doing big projects,” Witt said. “It’s determining whether or not [solar energy] is market-ready as a technology at such a large scale.”

Witt said he thinks it’s imperative to determine ways to find energy other than fossil fuels.

“We have to find other energy solutions,” he said. “I think solar can be a big part of that, so going forward with such a big project is an exciting step in the right direction.”

Reach the reporter at salvador.rodriguez@asu.edu.