The first phase of one of the largest solar power plants in the world has begun in China’s Gansu province. 300MW of a planned total of 1.1GW is expected to come online before the end of 2014, with the project wrapping up by 2019. The project is being developed by Singyes Solar Technologies Holdings Ltd.
The Chinese market for solar PV has grown dramatically in recent years and is expected to be the world’s largest in 2014. A huge amount of the world’s solar panels are manufactured in China, with hundreds of companies involved in the industry–although many have closed down during a glut of stock and manufacturing capacity that plagued the globe until about this year.
Singyes is a solar module manufacturer and project developer whose mainstay has been its work in the building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) sector. With the commencement of the 1.1GW solar plant, however, the company will be expanding its reach further, investing in research & development in an economic development partnership with Minqin county, where the project is located. Their efforts will be focused on meeting the needs of the local population, who in many cases do not have access to electricity, and include manufacturing a solar-powered baking room as well as ‘smart’ micro-grids.
Singyes chairman Liu Hongwei said in a press release from the company: “We hope that, by participating in solar project in Minqin County, Wuwei, Gansu Province, we can optimize the local energy structure, protect the ecological environment, as well as promoting the use of solar energy, and advancing the development of the PV industry. We will make use of the Wuwei solar product R&D base and take advantage of local conditions to explore a new PV industry that incorporates PV power generation, desert management, and modern agriculture as well as the new approach of ‘industrialized desertification control’.”
Top image by Singyes Solar, via PV-Tech
© 2014 Solar Choice Pty Ltd
