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A massive solar-energy project will be capturing the sun’s rays near the Cochise Stronghold area in southern Arizona within two years, Hyundai Heavy Industries announced on Wednesday.
The Korean company intends to build a 150-megawatt plant in Dragoon, Arizona, and a 25-megawatt plant in nearby Cochise. The plants will reportedly be operational by the end of 2012, says Bloomberg News.
The $700 million project will be completed with the help of a U.S. company, Matinee Energy.
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Hyundai Heavy, a shipbuilding company, intends to plop down more solar panels here and in Arizona in the future, resulting in plants that generate a total of about 900 megawatts.
The solar plants in Dragoon (population: 300 or so) and Cochise (population: about 50) will be fairly large, though not the world’s biggest.
Still, the plants are likely to be the biggest things to hit those towns since the railroad came.