January 6, 2013

One of the world’s biggest solar power collectors is being built next to the tiny town of Nipton, Calif., which is ironic because Nipton is the closet thing to an off-grid town – with 85 per cent of its energy coming from a set of solar panels installed by one of its 60 residents.
Gerald Freeman unlocks the gate to the small power plant and goes inside. Three rows of solar collectors, elevated on troughs that track the sun’s arc like sunflowers, afford a glimpse of California’s possible energy future.
This facility and a smaller version across the road produce almost all of the power required by Nipton’s 60 residents, its general store and motel.
Freeman, a Caltech-trained geologist and one-time gold mine owner, understood when he bought this former ghost town near the Nevada border that being off the grid didn’t have to mean going without power.
He contracted with a Bay Area company to install solar arrays on two plots of land. The town has a 20-year agreement to buy its power at a below-market rate.…