China races to build world’s largest solar farm

Chinese government officials showed that they say it would be the world’s largest solar farm.

It covers a Tibetan plateau and the size of Chicago for 610 square kilometers.

China builds solar panels much faster than anywhere in the world and begins to pay investment.

A study published on Thursday found that the country’s carbon emissions decreased one percent in the first six months of 2025 compared to the previous year and expanded a tendency that began in March 2024.

The good news is that China’s carbon emissions may be at the top of a government target before 2030.

However, China, the world’s largest greenhouse gases emitter, will have to reduce them much sharper to play the role of slowing global climate change.

Lauri Myllyvirta, the Finnish -based writer and chief analyst of the Energy and Clean Air Research Center, said that emissions should fall three percent in the next 35 years to reach the target of carbon impartiality by 2060.

“China needs to reach three percent as soon as possible,” he said.

China’s emissions have fallen before during economic slowdowns.

This time, the different thing is that electricity demand is growing-3.7 percent increase in the first half of this year-However, according to Myllyvirta, which analyzes the latest data in a study published on the UK-based carbon short website, the sun, wind and nuclear power increase easily left behind.

“We are talking about a structural decline tendency for the first time in China’s emissions,” he said.

China has established 212 Gigawatt sun capacity in the first six months of the year, and at the end of 2024, more than the US 178 Gigawatt capacity.

The electricity from Solar has passed through the hydroelectric in China and this year is preparing to cross the wind to be the largest clean energy source of the country.

Between January and June, approximately 51 Gigawatt wind power was added.

Li Shuo, Director of the Chinese Climate Center at the Asian Group Policy Institute in Washington, described China’s carbon emissions as a turning point in the fight against climate change.

“This is a moment of global importance that offers a rare light of hope in a gloomy climatic environment,” he wrote. It also shows that a country can still reduce emissions as it is still economically growing.

However, Li said that China’s heavy confidence against coal continues to be a serious threat to progress on the climate and that the economy should switch to less resource -intensive sectors. “There is still a long way,” he said.

Apparently an infinite solar panel width extends to the horizon on the Tibetan plateau.

White two -storey buildings rise at regular intervals.

In an area, which is largely deserted, the large solar project made a surprising change in the landscape.

Panels serve as wind pieces to slow down dust and sand and soil evaporation and give the vegetation a base.

Thousands of sheep, called “photovoltaic sheep”, are happy with rubbing plants.

Wang Anwei, the Chief of Energy Administration of Hainan State, called it more than one level of “win-win”.

“In terms of production, enterprises produce electricity at the highest level and in terms of ecology, grass grow at the bottom under solar panels and the villagers can drive between them,” he said.

Solar panels were established about two -thirds of the land, and the power flows from the already completed stages.

When fully completed, the project will have more than seven million panels and will be able to produce enough power for five million households.

Like most of China’s solar and wind farms, it was built in the West with relatively sparse population.

A major challenge is to obtain electricity to population centers and factories east of China.

Zhang Jinming, the governor of Qinghai province, said to journalists in a round organized by the state.

Part of the solution is building transmission lines circulating the country.

Someone ties Qinghai to the state of Henan.

One is planned to the Guangdong province in the southeast, almost two more in the opposite corner of the country.

Myllyvirta said that the fully use of power was prevented by the absence of the electricity network of China, which is adapted to more variable and less predictable wind and solar power plants according to the fixed output of coal power plants.

“This is an issue that policy -makers recognize and try to manage, but it requires major changes in the form of coal fuel power plants working and major changes in the work of the transmission network.”

“So this is not a little task.”

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