China is building a ‘city of mirrors’ on the roof of the world.
High on the Tibetan plateau, solar panels stretch across the desert in every direction. They shimmer like a second horizon. Sheep wander between them, grazing on plants that have taken root in the shelter of the glassy rows. Locals call them “photovoltaic sheep.”
The project is billed as the world’s largest solar farm. When finished, it will cover 610 square kilometers — about the size of Chicago — and generate enough power for 5 million households. It’s two-thirds of the way complete, and previous phases are already generating a lot of solar power. And it’s only the latest in China’s relentless sprint to dominate renewable energy.
This is this century’s industrial revolution and the West isn’t even in the competition anymore.
I hate articles that don’t give real units. 5 million households. Ugh. According to another article, we’re talking 7 GW.
Wow, I had a look around on Google maps for “solar panels in NW China’s Qinghai Province”… it’s incredible and so vast and there’s so many other massive solar and wind farms everywhere as well. How do they keep them clean? Surely output must degrade over time no? There’s even one where they made it into the shape of a giant horse. I guess that must be the logo of the energy company? Amazing…
I’ve seen some that have a bot that goes along a rail and cleans the panels. The bot itself with it’s own solar panel.
Rain keeps solar panels clean. Output degrades over time naturally regarldess.
I lived off grid with a 2kW system for a decade,. As a test we cleaned themmonce at about the 5 yr mark with soap, water and a broom. My measuring equipment wasn’t sensitive enough to notice any difference.
That said, this is a desert (not much rain) I have seen small solar powered robotic cleaners (like robotic window cleaners) used on vast solar arrays along a rail, an array that vast and an increase is worth it
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It must be the photovoltaic sheep that androids dream of.
This has more to do with their goal to cement their control over Tibet than any plan to save the environment.
Of all of the solar capacity China has installed, they actually use only a fraction of it. So it sits dark and good for nothing but being the subject of environmental puff pieces and authoritarian greenwashing. All of their industrialization is at the coast, and it is all powered by coal. Solar is installed in unindustrialized areas, and they haven’t bothered to modify their electricity network to transport the energy to where it would actually reduce carbon emissions.
I think the plan is to use localized inexpensive solar energy to power the industrialization of China’s interior, while continuing to accelerate their use of petrochemicals on the coasts. They’ve built economic protections for their coal industry and are building several more coal fired power plants as we speak. But if the politburo can entice more ethnic Chinese to move to Tibet, then suppressing independence movements will require less government resources. Meanwhile, China’s contribution to the carbon debt will accelerate.
Good to see china investing in its colony.
