Field of dreams: A sprawling vacant lot on the South Side of Chicago could be the site of the nation’s largest urban solar plant. Exelon, a Chicago-based utility, wants to fill 39 acres of the former industrial site with state-of-the-art photovoltaic panels that would produce enough electricity for up to 1,500 homes. The cost: $60 million. Credit: Chris Strong

This is the second of two articles by David Rotman on technology and the federal stimulus package. The first, "Can Technology Save the Economy?," appeared in the May/June 2009 issue and examined the economic consequences of the U.S. government's plans to spend $100 billion on technology.

The abandoned industrial site on the far edge of Chicago's South Side is an unlikely location for a large solar power plant. For one thing, Chicago is not a very sunny city. And the land itself, once a center of postwar manufacturing, has been vacant for 35 years and is now overgrown with trees and bushes, surrounded by a gritty neighborhood of aging houses. But Exelon, one of the country's largest electric utilities, says that by the end of the year it hopes to turn a 39-acre lot into the nation's largest urban solar plant. If it succeeds, row after row of nearly 33,000 silicon solar panels built and installed by SunPower, a photo­voltaics manufacturer based in San Jose, CA, will cover the lot to produce 10 megawatts of power--enough for about 1,200 to 1,500 homes.

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