On Feb. 18, NASA’s Earth Observatory featured an aerial view of the largest solar farm in the world: Longyangxia Dam Solar Park in northwestern China’s Qinghai province. The park is operated by State Power Investment Cooperation, one of China’s top five power generators.

The photo was captured by NASA’s Operational Land Imager (OLI) onboard the Lansat 8 satellite.

Since construction started in 2013, the colossal solar park has been steadily expanding, and now covers an area of more than 27 square kilometers. The massive farm so far contains nearly 4 million solar panels.

The 850 MWp hybrid hydro-solar project has proven effective in solving the volatility and intermittent quality of PV power output, thus improving the stability of grid operations.

China's installed photovoltaic (PV) capacity rose to 77.42 gigawatts (GW) by the end of 2016, nearly doubling from 2015. This jump made China the world's largest producer of solar energy by capacity, according to a news release from the National Energy Administration on Feb. 4.