Sarnia Photovoltaic Power Plant near Sarnia, Ontario in Canada, is as of September 2010 the world’s largest photovoltaic plant with 80 MWp.

20 MWp Phase I was completed in December 2009 and 60 Phase II in September 2010. Plant consists of over 1,000,000 panels. The project is developed by Enbridge.

The Sarnia Photovoltaic Power Plant project was originally proposed by Opti-Solar under the Standard Offer Contract program. Opti-Solar had started contstruction on one of the several 10 MW contracts it had obtained from the Ontario Power Authority.

Opti-Solar failed in the development of its technology and had installed only one MW of its first 10 MW plant when it sold rights to the project to First Solar.

To my knowledge, First Solar is building two 10-MWAC projects using its inhouse thin film product. Canadian Hydro Developers is either the owner now or will be when the project is complete.

Because the contracts are in kWAC the 20 MW project is likely rated at 23 MWDC.

There has been heated debate about this and other large solar PV farms on prime ag land so I thought I'd visit one and see for myself. At least in this case, the project is on the peri-urban fringe of Sarnia with suburbs, stripmalls, malls, and assorted detritus of North American sprawl swallowing the existing ag land. My impression was that this particular project area would have become another mall or something similar and was destined to be bulldozed within a decade.

The site was also near a landfill and if the parcel didn't become a mall it could have become a landfill.

Nevertheless, it was farm land prior to construction and its now fast becoming one of the largest, if not the largest solar PV farms in North America.