India has completed a solar farm in Kamuthi, Tamil Nadu.  And it is taking the title of "the world’s largest solar power plant" from the previous record holder, the Topaz Solar Farm in California.

The California plant has a capacity of 550 MW, but the new facility in Kamuthi has a capacity of 648 MW; at full capacity, it should produce enough electricity to power 150,000 homes.  The plant it is comprised of 2.5 million individual solar modules, and covers an area of ten square kilometers.  And it was built in just eight months at a cost of US$679 Million. 

Most importantly, it has helped nudge India's total installed solar capacity across the 10 GW mark.  India will become the world's third largest market for solar power in 2017, behind the US and China.  The government has set forth on plans to power 60 million homes by the sun by 2022, and to produce 40 percent of its power from non-fossil fuels by 2030.