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The curse of bigness plagues many a solar project news story. Barely a week goes by without someone claiming—and much of the mediaverse parroting--that a planned PV system installation will be the largest of its kind in the world or in a particular region or in some subcategory such as rooftop or ground-mount, tracking or fixed, or crystalline silicon or thin film.

What do all of these upbeat, forward-looking announcements have in common?

None of the projects has been built yet, let alone activated.

Shouldn’t bragging rights be based on the facts on the ground, not on scenarios still on the drawing board? 

The latest example comes from the trio of Suntech, Recurrent Energy, and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. A 5MW PV installation to be constructed on top of the city’s Sunset Reservoir will be the largest municipal PV system in the United States and the largest PV system full stop in California, according to the commission.

If the system were plugged in today, such boasts would be true. But is it right to compare what will be with what is, when one can’t be sure that what will be will still be the biggest? In some cases, there’s also that nagging question of whether the project will ever be built.   

And, once all the regulatory approvals and permits have been obtained and all those rows of gleaming PV panels do get installed and the project can be certifiably called the grandest of them all, for how long will it remain preeminent?

Many purported PV projects suffer from the curse. The 2.42MW rooftop system on the FedEx center in New Jersey will be the biggest rooftop array in the States, while the recently approved Exelon/Sunpower 10MW plant in Chicago will be the largest urban solar farm in the country. 

Several contenders all lay claim to future title of “the biggest utility-scale PV system in the U.S.” : Austin Power’s 30MW plant, Florida Power and Light’s 25MW station, Sempra’s combined 58MW site in Boulder City, NV. Backers of the recently announced 75MW Teanaway Solar Reserve, scheduled to be built in the oft-sun-deprived state of Washington, have laid claim to being the biggest PV power plant on the planet—once it’s completed, of course. 

That list doesn’t include the Carrizo Plain sites in central California where First Solar plans to build a massive 550MW system and SunPower a 210MW plant to send juice to PG&E—truly utility-scale operations that will, if/when finished, dwarf the generating capacities of all those wannabes’ sites.

The effects of the curse can be felt outside the U.S. as well. Two Italian projects are posturing to secure the mantle of “the biggest rooftop PV system” on the planet: the 18MW array to be built on the Milan Trade Fair complex and Solon’s 15MW installation planned for an Interporto di Padua logistics center. (What, no mention of Sharp’s purported 18MW system that will grace its TFPV factory roof next year?)

Q-Cells says the 50MW farm slated for the German countryside will be the largest ground-mounted, crystalline-silicon installation in the country—although the company won’t be able to claim the prize as the biggest PV installation, regardless of cell technology.  The recent announcements from ReneSola and Suntech about hundreds of megawatts’ worth of projects to be built in China have a distinct “I’ll believe it when I see it” edge to them. Even a measly 1MW system in Adelaide, Australia, gets in on the act, since its developers say it will be the biggest PV plant in the land of Oz.

How does one claim to be the biggest PV installation in the world or in a region, or the largest system of its kind? Put simply, just compare what’s already operational out in the field with the size of the proposed project, and if your scale surpasses theirs, then say you are or will be the biggest. Don’t let anyone else who’s put forward similar claims get in the way of believing your own hyperbole.

Then there’s the issue of how big is big. Are the systems under discussion rated in direct or alternating current, in terms of installed megawattage? Some companies—First Solar for example—state their installation MWs in AC, which is the ultimate metric for any grid-connected electricity source.

Many more companies either neglect/decline to state whether the project is rated in DC or AC or choose to use DC numbers to make the projects look even more impressive, even though it may lead to comparing DC apples to AC oranges. (At least SEPA says it uses strictly AC ratings in its own databases of operating PV power plants and proposed/announced projects.)

So PV module makers and system developers/integrators, take note: please state that your project in the works could possibly be the biggest and baddest if it were producing electricity today--and don’t forget to include the DC and/or AC rating(s). But please please don’t succumb to the curse of bigness and claim to be all that and a bag of chips before a shovel of dirt has been turned, a panel has been racked, or a watt has been sent to the grid.