California regulators have licensed what is for the moment the world’s largest solar thermal power plant, a 1,000-megawatt complex called the Blythe Solar Power Project to be built in the Mojave Desert. By contrast, a total of 481 megawatts of new solar capacity was installed in the United States last year, mostly from thousands of rooftop solar arrays, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade group.
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/17/california-licenses-worlds-biggest-solar-thermal-plant/?src=twt&twt=nytimesscience