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Xinjiang's Vast PV Industry Deployment: Turning Desert Land into a Green Energy Powerhouse
来源: | 作者:GW | 发布时间: 2024-12-12 | 56 次浏览 | 🔊 点击朗读正文 ❚❚ ▶ | 分享到:

Xinjiang's Vast PV Industry Deployment: Turning Desert Land into a Green Energy Powerhouse

In the vast desert and Gobi regions of Xinjiang, China, a stunning transformation is underway. Once regarded as barren wastelands, these areas are now dotted with endless arrays of photovoltaic (PV) panels, stretching like blue oceans under the intense sunlight. As a core area of China's national new energy strategy, Xinjiang has witnessed large-scale deployment of the PV industry in recent years, leveraging its abundant solar resources to drive green energy development, ecological improvement, and regional prosperity. This large-scale application not only reshapes China's energy structure but also sets a remarkable example for the sustainable utilization of arid and semi-arid regions worldwide.
Xinjiang's advantage in solar energy is unparalleled. Endowed with over 3,000 hours of annual sunshine and high solar radiation intensity, regions such as Ruoqiang, Luopu, and Tacheng have become ideal locations for large-scale PV power bases. A series of landmark projects have been completed and put into operation, showcasing the scale and efficiency of Xinjiang's PV industry. The China Energy Investment Group's 4-gigawatt (GW) PV project in Ruoqiang, located on the southeastern edge of the Taklamakan Desert, is a standout example. Covering an area of 76.02 square kilometers—equivalent to 10,600 standard football fields—the project is equipped with 6.04 million PV panels and set a new record for China's largest single-unit PV installation. It officially entered commercial operation in May 2025, with an expected annual power generation capacity of 6.9 billion kilowatt-hours, sufficient to meet the annual electricity needs of 2 million households.
Another notable project is the Luopu 1-million-kilowatt PV Desert Control Demonstration Project developed by CGN. Commencing construction in October 2024 and connected to the grid in May 2025, it holds the record as China's fastest-built GW-level PV power station. What makes these projects even more remarkable is their integration of energy production with ecological restoration. Adopting the three-dimensional model of "power generation on panels, ecological restoration underneath", these PV bases are turning deserts green while generating clean energy.
The "panel-under ecological restoration" model has achieved remarkable results in desert control. The extensive PV panel arrays act as sunshades, reducing the surface temperature by 3 to 5 degrees Celsius and lowering surface evaporation by 30% to 60%. This creates a more favorable microclimate for plant growth. In the Luopu project, drought-tolerant plants such as Pennisetum americanum and alfalfa have taken root between and under the panels, while 2.6 million piles have stabilized 99,000 square meters of shifting sand dunes. A local villager, Alikmu Duolaiti, noted the striking ecological change: "This used to be a desolate area where not even birds would come. Now, after the treatment, many birds gather here." The project is also exploring a "PV + planting + breeding" model, raising chickens and sheep under the panels, which not only improves land utilization but also increases local farmers' income.
Technological innovation is the core driver behind the large-scale and efficient operation of Xinjiang's PV industry. Advanced technologies such as heterojunction (HJT) PV modules have been widely adopted. Although HJT modules only have a 0.2% higher efficiency than traditional ones, the large scale of Xinjiang's projects means this translates to an additional 138 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually—enough to power 70,000 households for a year. Intelligent operation and maintenance technologies are also playing a key role. Digital collection stations, drones, inspection robots, and cleaning robots enable unmanned and intelligent management of PV bases, significantly improving operational efficiency and reducing maintenance costs. For instance, the CGN Mayitas Wind Farm has developed a self-made slip ring testing device with high precision, and its collaborative de-icing system has reduced annual downtime from 180 hours to 30 hours, increasing annual power generation by approximately 17 million kilowatt-hours.
The large-scale development of the PV industry in Xinjiang is strongly supported by China's "West-to-East Power Transmission" strategy. As new energy bases take shape, supporting power transmission channels are being continuously improved. With the completion of the fourth "West-to-East Power Transmission" channel in 2027, clean electricity from Ruoqiang is expected to meet over 60% of the electricity demand in Sichuan and Chongqing. This not only solves the problem of local consumption of large-scale PV power but also provides a stable supply of green energy for energy-intensive regions in central and eastern China. Data shows that since 2009, CGN has invested over 34 billion yuan in Xinjiang's new energy sector, with an installed capacity of over 10 GW in operation, and has delivered over 34.8 billion kilowatt-hours of green electricity to the Xinjiang power grid, equivalent to saving 4.277 million tons of standard coal and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 13.33 million tons.
Beyond energy and ecology, the PV industry is also becoming a powerful engine for Xinjiang's economic development and rural revitalization. Large-scale PV projects have driven the development of supporting industrial chains, with 18 industrial projects introduced in Bazhou, Hotan, Hami and other prefectures, covering high-end gearboxes, PV modules, new energy storage, and high-end professional robots. These projects have created a large number of local jobs and increased farmers' income through ecological management and under-panel breeding. Additionally, CGN and China Guoxin Group have jointly established an investment platform with a registered capital of 15 billion yuan to further strengthen and extend the industrial chain.
As Xinjiang continues to advance the large-scale application of the PV industry, it is writing a brilliant chapter of turning "barren deserts" into "energy seas". This model of integrating new energy development, ecological restoration, and regional development not only contributes to China's carbon neutrality goals but also provides valuable experience for global arid and semi-arid regions to achieve sustainable development. With continuous technological innovation and policy support, Xinjiang is well on its way to becoming a world-class green energy powerhouse.