Commercial Solar Electric Generation Regions

The regions were produced using a k-means method that groups the solar generating plants into discrete regions based on their latitude, longitude, and distance to coast. After facilities were grouped, the outermost facilities in each region were connected to create the boundaries for each region. To include all facilities inside each polygon, a 5 km buffer was used. Plants that are farther from a concentration of other plants are not included in a region and are instead displayed as outlying facilities. Areas outside of California included in the regions are simply the result of the mapping process and are not representing actual solar generating facilities. Based on the Quarterly Fuel and Energy Report dataset, this map focuses on data from plants of at least 1 MW capacity (commercial scale) and excludes smaller plants.