The park will be built in stages over nine years, but the first sections will be operational as early as 2012. Massive job creation, lucrative private-sector investments, local industry development and a cleaner, more secure power supply are among the benefits of a large-scale park such as this.

The project is a partnership between government, state power utility Eskom and the Clinton Climate Change Initiative (CCI). An investors' conference, to run from 28 to 29 October, is hoped to draw in additional stakeholders from the private sector.

What is a solar park?

A solar park is a concentrated zone of solar plants that are built in clusters, sharing common transmission and infrastructure. Together, these clusters generate thousands of megawatts of electricity. The types of technologies used are solar photovoltaic (PV) and concentrating PV (CPV), which operate with semiconductors and solar panels, as well as concentrating solar power (CSP), which uses mirrors to reflect the sun's rays. PV systems make a direct conversion into electricity, and are ideal to use at peak load times. The only problem is that there is no cost-effective way to store this power, so it's only viable when the sun is shining.

CSP, on the other hand, captures the sun as heat and turns it into steam to power turbines, which in turn generate electricity - much like coal-fired plants. The advantage here is that it's very cheap and efficient to store heat, so power can be supplied round the clock.

This makes CSP an excellent source of clean baseload power. South Africa's solar park will use a combination of PV and CSP technologies, although the actual breakdown of the mix is yet to be decided. The investors' conference in Upington, where the heart of the park will be, will gauge private contractors' interest in the project - thereby indicating which technologies are most bankable.

According to the Department of Energy, the cost of the R150-billion park will be split between the national fiscus and private investors. The fiscus contribution is likely to be millions of rands, while the latter is hoped to bring in billions. Some R1.8-billion from the R26-billion World Bank loan, granted to Eskom earlier this year, will also go towards the park's establishment.

Why the Northern Cape?

The levels of solar radiation in South Africa, particularly in the Northern Cape, are the best in the world, says Ira Magaziner of the CCI, the project's technical adviser. There are also large tracts of government-owned land available in the province; an abundance of water from the nearby Orange River; and easy access to good roads, an airport and major power transmission lines. It's not too dusty, the land is flat and sparsely populated, and there are no geological or climate risks, meaning that the sun can be used year-round.

"The costs of building solar plants within a solar park in South Africa are significantly less than those of building stand-alone plants in the south-western US deserts," Magaziner says, because of the higher solar radiation levels here; affordable labour; and the benefits of a solar park framework - which cut costs due to economies of scale.

Who will manage it?

A number of government working groups, spanning several departments, are currently working on the best ownership and management structure for the solar park. Once established, this authority will lease out land to private solar plant developers. The Northern Cape provincial government is expected to play a strong role in park management.