Construction started in 2011, north of the remote Mojave town of Desert Center. Built by First Solar, Nextera, GE, and Sumitomo, the plant cost $2 billion, covers 3,800 acres, and uses 8,800,000 photovoltaic panels. The Desert Sunlight Solar Farm is a 550- megawatt (MW AC) fixed-tilt photovoltaic power station approximately 6 miles (9. It was made by the US thin-film manufacturer First Solar but now has split ownership between. In September 2011, the Department of Energy issued two partial loan guarantees of $1. It is one of the biggest solar farms in the US, built in two phases, the first phase with a 300 MW capacity and the second with a 250 MW capacity. The CdTe thin film is a semiconductor layer that absorbs and converts sunlight into electricity. When it commenced operations, it was one of the largest photovoltaic plants in the world, a flagship project that demonstrated. Based on the meteorological observation data of air temperature, surface temperature and albedo data retrieved from remote sensing images inside and outside the photovoltaic station, as well as the measured soil moisture content and bulk density at different locations of the photovoltaic power.