The plant will be located in Colorado´s San Luis Valley and will produce 13,700 megawatt-hours per year, enough to power about 1,800 homes. Xcel expects construction to begin this year and be completed by the end of 2007.

The Minneapolis-based electricity and natural gas company is soliciting bids for the solar power plant to help it meet Colorado´s renewable energy standard. The standard requires utilities to generate 3 percent of their electricity from renewable resources by 2007 and 10 percent by 2015.