Two companies in China have announced that they intend to build a 1 GW solar power plant in the northwest region. Initially the solar farm will be built as a 30 megawatt station with an initial investment of $150 million.
The Chinese solar panels will combine crystalline silicon-based and thin film technology. This will rival another 1 GW solar installation that was announced about a month ago. Amelio Solar stated this they will be building a 1 GW solar farm in Jordan using thin-film photovoltaic technology.
In China, the Qinghai New Energy Group and China Technology Development Group Corporation will start building the giga-scale solar farm in the Qaidam Basin later this year. The basin was established as an Economic Experimental Zone for renewable energy by the Chinese government in 2005.
Currently, every 7 to 10 days another coal-fired power plant goes up in China. Over the past two years, coal consumption has jumped 14-percent per year. Quick and decisive action needs to be taken in China to reduce coal dependence and switch to renewables and the 1 GW solar power plant will be a jumpstart in the right direction.