Genesis Solar Plant, California

Genesis is a solar thermal power plant that began construction in 2011, and was producing 250 megawatts when it went online in 2014. It is located on the north side of Ford Dry Lake, west of Blythe, California. Genesis was built by Nextera, and cost around $1.5 billion. It is one of the largest parabolic trough-type power plants, with 600,000 concave mirrors that follow the sun and focus sunlight on a heat transfer fluid flowing through tubes in the troughs. The heated oil is pumped to heat exchangers where it generates steam, producing electricity. Most industrial scale solar plants made now are photovoltaic.