Chinese state-owned power company Three Gorges Renewables Group has unveiled plans to build the world’s largest solar farm.
The £8.5 billion project will be constructed in Inner Mongolia, northern China, and will supply electricity to the urban cluster of Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei (Jing-Jin-Ji). This announcement follows the activation of a 5GW solar complex in Xinjiang, currently the world’s largest operational solar plant.
Construction will begin in September 2024 and the facility is expected to be operational by June 2027, resulting in a 200,000 acres-big solar farm in a desert region, equivalent to the size of New York City.
The 8GW solar farm will have capacity enough to power around 6m homes. The will also include 4GW of wind power, 4GW of coal-fired power, 200 MW of solar thermal, and an additional 5 GWh of energy storage.
China leads the world in solar power capacity, with over 600GW connected to the grid as of November 2023.
It also continues to expand its solar capacity, having commissioned as much in 2023 as the rest of the world combined, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The IEA noted in a recent report on renewable energy that, while renewable capacity increases in Europe, the United States, and Brazil reached record highs, China’s growth was “extraordinary”.
In the report, the IEA added: “China’s role is critical in reaching the global goal of tripling renewables because the country is expected to install more than half of the new capacity required globally by 2030.”
