Mega solar, wind facility in pipeline in N.China

The construction of a mega solar and wind power base in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region will further facilitate the country's low-carbon energy transition and ensure domestic energy security, industry experts said.

With an overall installed capacity of 16 million kilowatts and an investment of 80 billion yuan ($11.47 billion), the project, located in the Kubuqi Desert in Inner Mongolia, China's seventh-largest desert, will cover 8 million kW of solar power and 4 million kW of wind power, said its operator China Three Gorges Corp.

As the world's largest power generation base of its kind in desert areas, the project also includes supporting advanced and efficient coal power installation up to 4 million kW, as well as 4-6 million kW of energy storage, it said.

Once completed, the base will be able to transfer about 40 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity to the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region every year and over half of it will be clean energy, equivalent to saving about 6 million metric tons of standard coal and reducing carbon dioxide by about 16 million tons, it said.

An analyst said the project will further optimize China's energy mix and facilitate the country's ambition of non-fossil fuels accounting for 20 percent of total energy consumption by 2025 and 25 percent by 2030.

The project will boost the proportion of clean power in the country's energy mix while helping the country to achieve its sustainable energy ambitions, said Luo Zuoxian, head of intelligence and research at the Sinopec Economics and Development Research Institute.

China vows to speed up the construction of solar and wind power generation facilities in the Gobi Desert and other arid regions amid efforts to boost renewable power consumption, taking advantage of plentiful solar and wind resources there, according to a statement jointly released by the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration.

The government will increase the total installed capacity of wind and solar power to 1.2 billion kW by 2030. China added a record 54.9 gigawatts of solar farms last year, 14 percent more than in 2020.

Lei Mingshan, chairman of China Three Gorges Corp, said the project will not only facilitate the government's ambitions to peak carbon by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, but also expand domestic demand and promote investment.

Together with the Kubuqi Desert project, the corporation also announced another 26 projects related to new energy and environmental protection on Wednesday with a total investment of more than 109.05 billion yuan and a total installed capacity of 19.64 million kW.