We've seen a few massive solar farms pop up out west, but it looks like Southern California Edison is taking a different approach: instead of cluttering up the desert, the company plans to build a distributed solar array on the rooftops of commercial buildings throughout SoCal. The plan is to spend $875M over five years to cover about two square miles of rooftop with the panels, which will alleviate stress on the grid by generating around 250 megawatts of juice, as much as a small power plant. That's enough to light up 162,000 homes, but it's still a little short of the record 280-megawatt Solana installation planned in Arizona -- come on, Cali, let's see a little fight.

Sure, we've seen monolithic solar farms before, but the 14-megawatt Nellis solar energy system is a beast that stands alone -- for now, at least. As of today, this farm is hailed as America's "largest solar photovoltaic system," but if all goes to plan, Cleantech America will grab those honors when it completes a massive 80-megawatt project in neighboring California. Nevertheless, this system -- which is housed at the Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada -- will reportedly generate "30 million kilowatt-hours of clean electricity annually and supply approximately 25-percent of the total power used at the base, where 12,000 people live and work." Of course, some 140 acres of land have been covered with 72,000 solar panels in order to make it happen, but it's not like anything else is going out there (CES and rabid gambling notwithstanding).

[Via MetaEfficient, image courtesy of CleanTech]

Cleantech America, a San Francisco based developer, has launched a project to build the world's largest solar farm, giving this Spanish solar tower a run for its money, as well as insulting the work of countless Tesco engineers and their puny, insignificant solar roof. When completed in 2011, the 80-megawatt spread of solar panels will cover roughly 640 acres and be 17 times the size of the largest US solar farm in existence. The project, which will generate enough power for nearly 21,000 homes, will be sold to the Kings River Conservation District, a public agency that purchases power for 12 cities and two counties in California's Central Valley. The company hopes that a solar farm of this size will be an industry-wide tipping point for energy providers, and will drive the cost of solar energy downward. Meanwhile, Tesco and Spain will be plotting their sublime revenge.