Dec. 4, 2011 - You can see it from the front window of the Desert Center Café — an ever-expanding patch of brown spreading out over the desert as men and machines clear the land for the first block of the Desert Sunlight solar project.
Located on public land about 50 miles east of Indio, the 550-megawatt photovoltic plant is in the first stages of construction schedule, with the first power expected to hit the grid by late 2013.
More than 175 workers are now at the site — from biological monitors who walk as far as 17 miles a day to ensure the project is environmentally responsible, to previously unemployed construction workers who were retrained at College of the Desert to work on large-scale solar plants.
“It laid the groundwork for what we're doing now,” said Morongo Valley resident Peter Mayo, 46, a COD graduate who's been on the job at Desert Sunlight for three months.
“The theory is very important. You can come out here, and we're putting posts in the ground, or you can understand you're part of the largest thin-film solar project in the world. That gives you a different outlook on what you're doing,” said Mayo, who lost his house during the recession.
“I believe in renewable energy; I think it's the way the future's going. We can't sustain the way we've been.” read more>>>
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