APS will buy all the power produced by the facility in its first 30 years, costing the utility a total of about $4 billion, while providing an estimated $1 billion in economic benefits to the state of Arizona. The plant's builder, Abengoa Solar, has built a demonstration solar trough plant in Spain and is building two 50-megawatt solar trough plants there. In addition, the company is currently operating the world's first commercial solar power tower plant, which uses a field of flat mirrors to focus sunlight onto a thermal collector at the top of a tall tower. The facility, called PS10, produces 11 megawatts of power, and Abengoa Solar is currently building PS20, which will produce 20 megawatts of power.

As the Abengoa Solar experience suggests, CSP is experiencing a resurgence in the United States and throughout the world. On Saturday, dedication ceremonies were held for Nevada Solar One, a 64-megawatt solar trough plant near Boulder City that started producing power last year. The facility is the largest CSP plant to be built in the world since 1991. A number of new CSP plants are also planned for southern California, including the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, a power tower facility that will reach 400 megawatts in three phases of construction. The California Energy Commission (CEC) is currently reviewing the Ivanpah application. With more CSP plants on the way, Ausra, Inc. announced in December that it will build a manufacturing facility in Las Vegas, Nevada, for CSP components such as mirrors, absorber tubes, and towers, and in January, Schott Solar announced plans to build a $100 million manufacturing plant in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to produce both absorber tubes and solar photovoltaic modules. The Ausra facility will begin production in April, while the Schott Solar facility should be completed next year.

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