Science idiots alert!
There may be may reasons to criticize this boondoggle, but 'creating' heat is not one of them.
Heat is converted, neither created nor destroyed.
Energy (okay, really mass/energy) is conserved. Heat is not. Visible light can be converted into thermal energy, creating heat out of energy which was not heat (just as, unlike divine creation in the beginning, all creation by human activity is creation out of something pre-existing) as is done at that facility, chemical energy can be used to create heat, as in a fire, and heat can be destroyed (as heat) by being converted into other forms of energy (as electricity).
I’m not sure whether the facility creates heat in the sense that the net amount of energy in the form of thermal energy in the area near it once it’s operational will be greater or less than when the sun simply hit the desert floor, but it plainly is turning a lot energy in the form of visible light into thermal energy (creating heat), and some of that thermal energy into electrical energy (destroying heat).