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Company Wants To Build Huge Solar Array In Nevada Desert

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A California company says it intends to spend billions of dollars to build the largest solar power plant in the world in the sun-baked Nevada desert about 225 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

SolarReserve executives and federal and state officials unveiled plans Tuesday near Tonopah to create a 10-tower concentrated solar array dubbed Sandstone Energy X.

Company chief executive Kevin Smith says the goal is to produce enough electricity to power about a million homes.

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The company already operates a single-tower project called the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Plant.

It produces 110 megawatts of electricity by focusing a 1-mile circle of mirrors on a central tower to heat molten salt to more than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

The superheated salt is then used to boil water to drive power turbines.