Here is a fantastic article that details the current and future state of solar power development. It was written by Todd Woody. Here is a paragraph and a link to the whole article. Highly recommend you read the whole article.

“”The race has barely begun - finished plants are years away - but it’s blazing fastest in the Mojave, where the federal government controls immense stretches of some of the world’s best solar real estate right next to the nation’s biggest electricity markets. Just 20 months ago only five applications for solar sites had been filed with the BLM in the California Mojave. Today 104 claims have been received for nearly a million acres of land, representing a theoretical 60 gigawatts of electricity. (The entire state of California currently consumes 33 gigawatts annually.)”" Click below to finish reading

http://greenwombat.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/07/15/the-solar-land-rush/