Last we heard, First Solar was the only American solar company setting up massive shop in China. As of this past Friday, however, it appears as if the Arizona powerhouse will have to share the space with a compatriot—Californian concentrating solar power company eSolar Inc., which will build a number of solar thermal “power tower” plants over the next decade. The plants are expected to generate a total of over 2,000 megawatts of electricity, which at peak output would be equivalent to that of a large nuclear facility.

ESolar’s “power towers” use fields of mirrors—heliostats—to concentrate solar energy to the top of a tower, where a water-filled receiver awaits. The water, converted to a highly pressured steam by the heat from the mirrors, then drives an electricity-generating turbine. Although the Pasadena, Los Angeles county-based solar company will be providing the technology and expertise for the plants, it won’t be doing the physical building. Under the agreement on Friday, China Shandong Penglai Electric Power Equipment Manufacturing Co. will manage the construction, while another firm, China Shaanxi Yulin Huayang New Energy Co., will own and operate the first towers.

The project marks the latest in China’s aggressive pursuit of clean energy development, with a 92-megawatt solar power plant to be built by eSolar later this year, in the sands of the Mongolian desert—a mere 60 miles away from First Solar’s own to-be 2,000-megawatt plant.

“If you’re identified by China as a leading technology developer, the technology will be imported with the implication that your technology will over time become local,” [said a solar energy analyst from consulting firm Bloomberg New Energy Finance.] “You effectively have one stakeholder, the government, which makes development much easier.”