By Ariel Schwartz •
January 2, 2009

2008 was an exciting year for solar energy, and 2009 is shaping up to be even better. Earlier this week, the China Technology Development Group Corp. and Qinghai New Energy Co. announced plans to build a 1 GW solar farm in China— the largest in the world.
The News & Observer reports that software company SAS is investigating whether to build a solar energy farm at the firm’s headquarters in Cary, North Carolina.
The proposed installation would be able to generate 1 megawatt of electricity, nearly 10 times as much as the next-largest solar farm in the state. That facility, located at the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro, produces about 105 kilowatts of electricity.