The Ivanpah Solar Project: Generating Energy Through Fields of Mirrors

3 minute read

When I visited the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, which sits in the Mojave Desert on the border between California and Nevada, I had to be careful where I looked. The engineers warned me not to look directly at the receivers arrayed on top of the centralized solar towers, which collected the desert sunlight concentrated by thousands of mirrors on the desert floor. The solar receiver was as bright as the heart of the sun, glowing with a retina-melting white. I had to force myself to look away.

Jamey Stillings, though, has far better eyes than I do. A photographer known for his work capturing mega-scale projects like the new bridge at the Hoover Dam, Stillings has been tracking the construction of Ivanpah since 2010, when he began an aerial survey of the site. His epic black-and-white images of Ivanpah reveal how different this solar plant is from other major infrastructure projects. Unlike solar photovoltaic plants, which generate electricity directly from sunlight, Ivanpah uses hundreds of thousands of curved mirrors to reflect and concentrate the desert sunshine. Three tall solar towers, each ringed by the mirrors, collect the heat and generate steam, which drives electric turbines. When it finally opens later this year, it will be the biggest solar thermal plant in the world.

Heat becomes steam becomes electricity—in the most basic sense, Ivanpah is no different than any fossil fuel plant burning coal or natural gas to generate electricity. But there are no emissions aside from the drift of water vapor, and where a power plant is all hard edges and forbidding steel, Ivanpah seems almost soft, integrated into the desert, as Stillings’ photos show. Even if it didn’t generate enough electricity to power 140,000 homes, Ivanpah would be one hell of a piece of landscape art.

But Ivanpah’s construction was not without controversy. The desert may seem lifeless from afar, but the Mojave is home to countless species, including a threatened desert tortoise that nearly scuttled the entire project. (In the end, the tortoises were painstakingly—and expensively—moved away from the footprint of the plant.) As Stillings writes, Ivanpah “raises challenging questions about land and resource use.” Environmentalism is supposed to have a preference for the small and the simple—and Ivanpah is neither, sprawling across 4,000 acres of public land that had once been largely undisturbed. Stillings’ pictures show the story—what was once nature has been forever changed.

Yet if the alternative energy movement is to ever make a true mark, Ivanpah may provide exactly what it needs: scale. As Stillings’ images illustrate, Ivanpah is nothing if not big, a dream of a different way of powering society that is suddenly, radically here. We may look back upon the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System as the beginning of a new era, one where industrial projects that rival the Hoover Dam for scale are integrated with the Earth, not a blight on it. And Jamey Stillings will be there to document it.


Jamey Stillings is a photographer based in Santa Fe.

Bryan Walsh is a senior editor for TIME International & an environmental writer. Follow him on Twitter @bryanrwalsh.


Interstate 15 and Ivanpah Solar, June 2012
Interstate 15 and Ivanpah Solar, June 2012Interstate 15 moves north toward the state line near Primm, Nevada with the site of Ivanpah Solar in the distance.Jamey Stillings
Alluvial slope and corner of Solar Field Two, January 2012
Alluvial slope and corner of Solar Field Two, January 2012The natural erosion patterns of the alluvial slope contrast with the geometric pattern of the boundary and service roads of Solar Field Two.Jamey Stillings
Construction yard, Solar Field Two, January 2012
Construction yard, Solar Field Two, January 2012Detail of the construction yard surrounding the Power Block of Solar Field Two.Jamey Stillings
Heliostat installation, June 2012
Heliostat installation, June 2012Workers installing a heliostat (pair of mirrors) at Solar Field One.Jamey Stillings
Heliostat installation, June 2012
Heliostat installation, June 2012Aerial view of heliostat installation on Solar Field One. Thousands of heliostats (pairs of mirrors) surround each of three towers at Ivanpah Solar.Jamey Stillings
Service Roads, Solar Field Three, June 2012
Service Roads, Solar Field Three, June 2012Aerial view of service roads that form concentric circles around the Power Block of Solar Field Three.Jamey Stillings
Heliostat installation, June 2012
Heliostat installation, June 2012 Workers installing a heliostat at Solar Field One.Jamey Stillings
Heliostats, Ivanpah Solar, 5 September 2013
Heliostats, Ivanpah Solar, 5 September 2013 Heliostats in a range of orientations and their respective shadows form an abstract pattern in one of the fields of Ivanpah Solar.Jamey Stillings
Heliostats, Solar Field Two, 4 September 2013
Heliostats, Solar Field Two, 4 September 2013 Heliostats form an abstact pattern in Solar Field Two.Jamey Stillings
Flux testing, Solar Field One, 4 September 2013
Flux testing, Solar Field One, 4 September 2013Flux testing at Solar Field One. Flux testing concentrates thermal energy to the tower to create steam, which will eventually drive steam turbines to delivery electricity to the grid.Jamey Stillings
Solar Fields Two and Three, 4 September 2013
Solar Fields Two and Three, 4 September 2013A view to the northwest of the Ivanpah Solar project's Solar Fields Two and Three. By the end of 2013, the project will deliver 377 megawatts of electricity to the grid, enought to power 140,000 American homes.Jamey Stillings
Ivanpah Solar, Solar Fields One, Two and Three
Ivanpah Solar, Solar Fields One, Two and ThreeA view to the north of Ivanpah Solar under construction. Just out of view to the right is Interstate 15, the Primm Valley Golf Club and the community of Primm, Nevada, June 2013.Jamey Stillings

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