File photo: CFP
The State Grid Ningxia Electric Power Co. kick-started the construction of a 2-million-kilowatt (kW) photovoltaic project in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region on Wednesday.
With a total investment of over 10 billion yuan ($1.56 billion), the project is expected to save about 960,000 tonnes of standard coal while reducing annual carbon emissions by about 2.62 million tonnes when it's put into operation.
The company estimated that the average annual power generation will reach 3.15 billion kWh upon completion. It will send electricity to east China's Zhejiang Province, increase the proportion of "green electricity" in the delivery channel and improve the utilization of clean energy, the company announced.
The project is part of China's recently launched large-scale wind power photovoltaic base project, which has an installed capacity of 100 million kW. The company will also build a 200,000-kW/400,000-kW energy storage station, which will be completed and put into operation by the end of 2023.
Ningxia is one of the regions rich in solar radiation in China. The project is set to make full use of the abundant sunlight and land resources such as coal preparation areas, mined-out areas and subsidence areas. The project is also conducive to improving the local ecological environment where people used to mine coal.
