China Is Building a Great Wall of Energy—and It Can Power an Entire City
Darren Orf
Mon, November 18, 2024 at 8:00 PM GMT+7
3 min read


solar panels under the sun
China's 'Solar Great Wall' Could Power Beijingmarian - Getty Images

China is the world leader in solar manufacturing, and they’re putting that accolade to use as the country attempts to build what it calls the “Solar Great Wall.”

Located along the southern edge of the Yellow River in northern China, this sprawling installation is estimated to provide 180 billion kWh of clean energy by 2030, which exceeds even Beijing’s annual energy budget.

The project also hopes to address conservation issues, such as desertification of the Yellow River basin and ecological restoration in the Kubuqi Desert.

From the 7th century to the 3rd century B.C., Chinese dynasties constructed the 13,171-mile-long Great Wall of China. Fast-forward two millennia, and now the nation is embarking another “great wall,” but this one is less concerned with protecting China from Mongolian hordes and more focused on supplying the country with bountiful amounts of solar energy.

Currently under construction in the Kubuqi Desert along the southern edge of the Yellow River in northern China (in a broader autonomous region known as Inner Mongolia), the “Solar Great Wall” will stretch some 133 kilometers long and 25 kilometers wide. China hopes that the wall will provide a staggering 180 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) per year by 2030. According to Ordos Energy, the company behind the project, that’s more than enough to provide all of the energy needs for Beijing, which eats up around 135.8 billion kWh of energy per year.

However, some of that generated power will benefit communities in the region, an energy official in the Dalad Banner (a smaller division of Inner Mongolia) told the state-sponsored media outlet China Daily. According to the official, a new transmission line will transport 48 billion kWh of energy from the installation to the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region every year.

“All of the projects are invested in by State-owned companies, some of which are centrally administered ones,” Dalad Banner official Li Kai told China Daily, “and so local governments don’t have to make any investment at all. In total, approximately 50,000 job opportunities will be generated by 2030.”

Apart from energy generation and job opportunities, the project also comes with a positive conservation side effect. The Yellow River, known as the “mouth river” of the Chinese nation, is experiencing a process known as desertification where the river’s ecological basin slowly degrades into desert-like conditions. The installation plans to treat 27 million hectares of this region by providing shade and reducing evaporation. The panels themselves also provide windbreaks, which can protect the surrounding environment from further soil erosion.

These shaded regions also provide ample opportunities to plant commercial crops. The project plans on planting some 2,400 hectares of crops in an attempt to also treat the more desertous regions of the “Solar Great Wall.” Li says the local government is committed to forming a “symbiotic relationship” between economic advancement and ecological preservation.

These massive green energy installations, whether solar, wind, or a mix of the two, will become more and more common as the world rushes to decarbonize. This trend is also well underway in the U.S. with the Energy Information Administration forecasting a 75 percent increase from 163 billion kWh in 2023 to 286 billion kWh in 2025.

Solar installations also come with a variety of environmental dangers, including disturbed habitats and an increase in bird strikes as waterfowl mistake the solar panels for water, but scientists and engineers in the U.S. are working on ways to increase pollinator plants around these installations, create vital wildlife corridors, and advocate for solar installations to be constructed on sites already disturbed by humans (areas known as brownfields).

In the future, the U.S. and other energy-intensive countries may similarly construct their own “Solar Great Walls.” Hopefully, they can all be a boon for humans as well as the other living things that share the planet with us.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-bui...130000300.html



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