Satellite images of a horse, pomegranates, and a camel, created from Solar Panel installations in China and Mongolia. Via…
Satellite images of a horse, pomegranates, and a camel, created from Solar Panel installations in China and Mongolia.
Via @russss@chaos.social.
The Horse image was created in association with Huawei, in a project that also includes agrivoltaics (growing crops between and underneath solar panels):
In the Kubuqi Desert of Inner Mongolia, the State Power Investment Corporation used Huawei’s smart PV solution to build a 300 MW solar power station. The power station located in Dalad Banner, an administrative region in Inner Mongolia, boasts 196,000 solar panels that were installed in the pattern of a galloping horse. By the end of 2022, the power station had produced 2.566 billion kWh of green electricity, equivalent to saving 1.027 million tons of coal equivalent and reducing CO2 by 2.56 million tons. The project has also fixed more than 1,000 hectares of sand.
The solar panels do far more than just generate electricity. Local residents have been able to plant herbs and shrubs under the panels and cash crops like desert false indigo and Mongolian milk vetch between the arrays. This prevents further erosion of the land between the panel arrays and contributes to wind and sand fixation and ecosystem restoration. This power station serves as a perfect example of how PV can support desertification control, and plans to replicate this success are being made in other desert lands of western China.Alxa Right Banner, in Mongolia, the location of the Camel design, is a thriving camel business region. Hotan, in Xinjiang, China, is likewise a prominent pomegranate cultivation area.