The news agency AP was present during the summer when the regime showed off the record facility. It is two-thirds complete, and when finished, it will have over seven million panels, which will provide electricity equivalent to the consumption of five million households.
The construction area is 610 square kilometers – equivalent to approximately the Danish island of Bornholm.
There is plenty of land in Qinghai, a sparsely populated desert region northeast of Tibet. The nature is inhospitable, but the solar investment has had unexpectedly positive effects. The panels alleviate the winds, which reduces soil erosion and paves the way for more vegetation. And grazing animals thrive in the shade that the facility offers.
Electricity is created above, the ecology is favored below – the grass grows under the panels, and villagers can graze sheep between them, says Wang Anwei, energy manager in the region, to AP.
Five years ahead of schedule
The solar facility in Qinghai is part of a mega-investment in green energy in China. Only during the first half of this year, 212 gigawatts of solar capacity were installed. This can be compared to the fact that the USA has a total capacity to generate electricity of 178 gigawatts.
And it yields results. The country has been criticized for its modest goals of reducing emissions, which are expected to start decreasing by 2030, to reach a zero level by 2060. Now, the peak seems to have been reached already. According to preliminary figures, China's carbon dioxide emissions have fallen since the beginning of last year, and amounted to minus 1 percent in the first half of this year.
Thus, the 2030 goal has been reached five years ahead of schedule.
An important point is also that this happens despite an increasing electricity consumption, according to Lauri Myllyvirta, a Finnish expert at the think tank Crea (Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air).
"Perfectly mismatched"
However, he emphasizes that the zero target in 2060 will still be difficult to achieve for a superpower that still uses enormous amounts of dirty coal energy. To get there, the emission reduction must accelerate to 3 percentage points – and then continue at that rate for 35 years.
China must reach the 3 percent area (per year) as soon as possible.
A crucial part of the challenge is the same as in Sweden – that renewable electricity is built and produced at one end of the country, while energy demand exists in completely different regions.
The distribution of green energy resources is perfectly mismatched with where the industries are located in our country, says Qinghai's vice governor Zhang Jinming to AP and other media during the tour.
To address this, they are also making a major investment in new power lines. And Li Shuo at the think tank Asia Society Policy Institute in Washington tells AP that even though much remains to be done, China's development can be a turning point for the whole world.
"This is important globally, an unusual ray of hope in the bleak climate landscape," he writes to AP.
