This silent stretch of sand in the state of Coahuila is the spot the Italian energy giant Enel picked to build the Villanueva power plant: 2.3 million solar panels that sprawl across a sun-soaked area the size of 2,200 football fields.
When the plant reaches full capacity later this year, it will supply enough electricity to power 1.3 million homes.
It is the biggest solar project in the world outside China and India.
The panels are designed to turn in tandem with the sun, like a field of metallic sunflowers.
They are part of Mexico’s push to generate 35 percent of its electricity from clean sources by 2024.
Mexico won plaudits from environmentalists in 2015 when it became the first emerging country to announce its emissions reduction targets for the United Nations climate accord, ambitiously vowing to halve them by 2050.
A key part of that push is a sweeping energy reform undertaken in 2013.
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