Desert Sunlight Solar Farm

The Desert Sunlight Solar Farm is a 550-megawatt (MWAC) photovoltaic power station approximately six miles north of Desert Center, California, United States, in the Mojave Desert. It uses approximately 8.8 million cadmium telluride modules made by the US thin-film manufacturer First Solar. It has the same 550 MW installed capacity as the Topaz Solar Farm in the Carrizo Plain region of Central California, making both of them tied for the second largest completed solar plants by installed capacity as of fall 2015.

Project details
Project construction took place in two phases, both of which are supported by power purchase agreements.

Phase I has a capacity of 300 MW, which will be sold to Pacific Gas & Electric Company. Phase II has a capacity of 250 MW, which will be sold to Southern California Edison. The project was expected to involve more than 550 construction jobs in Riverside County, California. The project was built on over 6 sqmi of creosote bush-dominated desert habitat near Desert Center next to Joshua Tree National Park. Construction began in September 2011 and final completion was in January 2015.

The $1.46 billion in loans for the project are partially guaranteed by DOE and will be funded by a group of investors led by Goldman Sachs Lending Partners, which submitted the project under the Financial Institution Partnership Program (FIPP), and Citigroup Global Markets Inc. as co-lead arranger.

A 230 MW and 920 MWh (4-hour) battery storage power station was added in 2022.

Environmental issues
In 2012 the National Parks Conservation Association issued a report identifying three desert solar power plants sited within five miles of National Parks in the California Desert as projects that they suggest should not have been approved in their locations, including the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm. The NPCA report cites damage and impact to visual resources, and impacts on critical desert species.