The source is free, but the equipment needed to turn the sun's energy into power costs a lot of money.

"It's a very hefty price tag," Austin City Council Member Mike Martinez said.

Martinez said he will vote yes for the $250 million plant. If approved, as expected, the plant would become the largest in the nation.

The payoff is that the array would produce enough energy to power about 5,000 Austin homes each year.

"What it's going to say is that we're stepping up to the plate and we are really willing to make a commitment that no other community is willing to make," Martinez said.

The plant would be built on city-owned land in the small town of Webberville, just east of Austin.

The company that would build and operate the plant, Gemini Solar Development is a joint venture between MMA Renewable Ventures and Suntech Power, a Chinese company.

The panels for the massive project would be built at one of Suntech's factories in China, not the United States.

"Obviously it would be ideal for everything we use in the City of Austin to be built either in this country, either in this county or even in the city and that's always in the preferable course of action," Ed Clark of Austin Energy said.

The City of Austin received 15 bids for this project. According to Austin Energy, the second place bid, from a company out of Boulder, Colorado, was roughly $30 million more than Gemini's bid.

It's a difference many would attribute to China's lower cost of labor.

"There's is not any doubt in our minds that this company can deliver on this project," Clark said.

It's a massive project, both in size and money, but it's also one where most of its parts will comes from halfway across the world.