South Africa’s biggest solar plants vs the world

South Africa has 63 independent solar plants, with the largest boasting a capacity of 100 MW. However, compared to solar farms in Asia and the Middle East, South Africa’s plants are miniature in scale.

All South Africa’s solar farms in operation, under construction, or still awaiting financial close provide a combined capacity of over 4.4GW.

This is South Africa’s largest form of renewable energy production, with wind energy production at roughly 3.3 GW.

The largest of the country’s independently owned solar farms all have a capacity of 100 MW: XiNa Solar One, Karoshoek Solar One, Kathu Solar Park, Kaxu Solar One, and Redstone Solar Thermal Power Plant.

Solar projects are also under construction or awaiting financial close that will soon become the country’s biggest, such as Virginia Solar Park and Good Hope Solar Park, with design capacities of 240 MW and 200 MW, respectively.

However, these do not even remotely compare to the world’s largest plants.

The largest solar plant in the world is the Midong Solar Park, owned by the China Green Development Group.

It has a capacity of 3,500 MW and is located in Urumqi, China’s Xinjiang region. This is almost 35 times the size of South Africa’s largest solar farm.

The plant is made up of 5.26 million 650 W monocrystalline bifacial double-glass PV panels, and the total installation cost was R39 billion, according to PV Magazine.

China’s second-largest plant is also the world’s runner-up.

It is the Gonghe Talatan Solar Park with an installed capacity of 3,182 MW.

It covers 610 square kilometres of the Gonghe desert, which receives an average of 1,600 hours of sunshine yearly and is nearly 3,000 meters above sea level.

The entire plant is equivalent to the land area of Singapore.

Midong Solar Park in China

Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park in the United Arab Emirates claims to be the largest single-site solar plant in the world and plans to have a 5,000 MW capacity by 2030.

It currently has an operational capacity of 2,860 MW and has completed five of the six phases planned for the project. 1,800 MW of capacity is currently under construction.

Once completed, the plant will also feature the world’s tallest solar tower in a heliostat power plant.

This type of solar generation uses mirrors to reflect concentrated sunrays towards a collector tower in the centre, known as Concentrated Solar Power.

There is one in South Africa called the Redstone Solar Thermal Power plant near Postmasburg in the Northern Cape. It uses molten salt thermal energy storage to generate energy when the sun is not shining.

Bhadla Solar Park was once the world’s largest plant but now has to settle for third place.

It spreads across 57 square kilometres in Jodhpur District, Rajasthan, India, where conditions have been described as “nearly unliveable” due to temperatures between 46 and 48 °C.

The solar plant, with an installed capacity of 2,250 MW, can produce enough energy to power 1.3 million homes annually.

It comprises 10 million solar panels and cost R26 billion to construct.

The Pavagada Solar Park is the world’s fourth-largest solar plant, with a capacity of 2,050 MW.

Construction began in 2016 and was finished in 2018. It covers 52 square kilometres in Pavagada Taluk, Thirumani, India, which had been leased from roughly 2,300 farmers over a 25-year period.

The estimated investment to construct the solar plant was roughly R40 billion.

The table shows the largest solar plants in the world and South Africa.

Solar plant	Capacity (MW)	Location
Worldwide
Midong Solar Park	3,500	China
Gonghe Talatan Solar Park	3,182	China
Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park	2,860	UAE
Bhadla Solar Park	2,245	India
Pavagada Solar Park	2,050	India
South Africa
XiNa Solar One	110	Northern Cape
Karoshoek Solar One	110	Northern Cape
Kathu Solar Park	110	Northern Cape
Kaxu Solar One	110	Northern Cape
Redstone Solar Thermal Power Plant	110	Northern Cape

Bhadla Solar Park aerial view. Credit: NASA