Written by LHASA – Southwest China’s Tibet autonomous region is poised to develop into the country’s major solar power generation base with 10 additional photovoltaic power plants to be completed inside this year.
The new plants, having a total investment of two billion yuan ($308 million) as well as a combined 100-megawatt capability, will reap the benefits of Tibet’s ample solar energy resources to ease the plateau region’s energy shortages, stated Wang Haijiang, a noted researcher on Tibet’s power development.
Construction of the majority of the new plants has begun, including a 30-megawatt solar photovoltaic generation plant in Xigaze Prefecture, about 3 kms northwest of Tibet’s second greatest city Xigaze.
Upon its completion this month, the plant will produce up to 20.23 million kilowatt-hours of electrical power annually, stated Wang.
Meanwhile, a 10-megawatt solar photovoltaic generation plant is being built in Yangbajing, a town 90 km northwest in the regional capital Lhasa, having a created power generation capability of 430 million kWh through its 25-year life span.
Photovoltaic is really a strategy of generating electric energy by converting solar radiation into direct existing electrical power by using semiconductors.
Tibet has abundant solar energy sources, with a regular 3, 000 hour of solar radiation annually, or about 6,000 to 8000 megajoules per square meter.
Over the past 60 years, Tibet has stepped up exploitation of its clean energy resources hoping to safeguard the plateau ecology through searching for economic development, mentioned Wang.
It started using solar energy inside the 1980s.
At this time, the region’s installed 9-megawatt solar photovoltaic generation process accounts for 13 percent of China’s total.
Solar energy is now broadly made use of by Tibetan families: with practically 400,000 solar stoves installed in Tibetan kitchens, 10,000 square meters of houses being heated by solar energy and 200,000 households relying on solar energy for lighting.
Housewife Chogyal in Zada County of Ngari Prefecture mentioned her household relied on solar energy for powering most of the household’s appliances and electric facilities. “On top rated of it, we do not must pay a cent for (solar produced) electricity.”
Tibet’s regional government estimated solar power helped conserve a minimum of 162,800 tons of coal equivalent last year.
China’s total domestic demand for solar photovoltaic power was about 500,000 kilowatts a year, in accordance with the National Power Administration (NEA), the country’s top energy planner.
China’s plans to expand the solar PV power market place gradually: to about five million kilowatts installation capability in 2015 and 20 million kilowatts in 2020, based on the NEA.
