Major renewable energy power base starts 2nd phase construction

Construction of the second phase of China's largest renewable energy power base in the country's Gobi Desert and other arid regions will further facilitate the country's shift from its dependence on coal to renewables for power generation — a boon to achieving the country's sustainable energy ambitions, said industry experts.

The second phase kicked off construction on Tuesday in Northwest China's Ningxia Hui autonomous region, said its operator China Energy Investment Corp, or China Energy.

Located in the Tengger Desert, the project, with a total installed capacity of 2 gigawatts, is expected to provide approximately 3.96 billion kilowatt-hours of clean electricity annually, helping save more than 1.2 million metric tons of standard coal and reduce annual carbon dioxide emissions by more than 3.29 million tons, it said.

The first phase of the project, with an installed capacity of 1 million kilowatts, was connected to the grid and began generating power in July, generating more than 1 billion kWh by the end of September, the company said.

Primarily focusing on large-scale wind and solar power development with a total installed capacity of 13 million kW, the project, the country's first in response to the government's ambitions to speed up the construction of solar and wind power generation facilities in the Gobi and other arid regions, will help regions like Ningxia, as well as the Xinjiang Uygur and Inner Mongolia autonomous regions, upgrade to a new energy-based structure, said Luo Zuoxian, head of intelligence and research at the Sinopec Economics and Development Research Institute.

"The regions will play a key role in boosting the proportion of clean power in the country's energy mix," he said.

"These regions, which used to rely on heavy consumption of traditional energy resources for economic growth, possess abundant wind and solar resources. The government's guidance will not only benefit the local economy but ensure a sufficient green power supply in the country's load center."

According to the National Energy Administration, China saw a steady increase in the newly installed capacity of clean energy in the first seven months of this year, with the newly installed capacity of solar power expanding 42.9 percent year-on-year to 490 million kW, while that of wind power stands at about 390 million kW, representing a year-on-year increase of 14.3 percent.