1986: Largest Solar-Thermal Power Facility Opens in California

The world’s largest solar-thermal facility opens in Kramer Junction, California. The solar field uses rows of mirrors that concentrate solar energy onto a system of pipes circulating a heat transfer fluid. That fluid produces steam, which in turn powers a conventional turbine to produce electricity. The Kramer Junction facility is the largest of nine such plants built in the 1980s. [US Department of Energy, 2002 ]