Rise of China’s Xinjiang as coal hub undercuts climate goals
Output has surged 22% this year, the fastest growth of any region in China.
China Three Gorges Renewables Group Co. is planning a massive power base mixing wind, solar, coal and batteries in the Taklamakan Desert, the company said in an exchange filing Wednesday.
The total investment for the project would be as much as 71.8 billion yuan ($10 billion). It would include 8.5 gigawatts of solar panels, 4 gigawatts of wind turbines, six 660-megawatt coal power generators and 5 gigawatt-hours of battery storage, the company said in the filing.
The project is part of a plan to fill China’s unused desert land with clean electricity generation and transport it on long-distance transport lines to densely populated cities. Coal, the country’s mainstay fuel, is often included to help balance the intermittency of wind and solar. This project, in southern Xinjiang, would deliver about 36 billion kilowatt-hours a year — more than enough to power Ireland — to Sichuan and Chongqing.
The company also announced plans to spend as much as 4.7 billion yuan on a separate offshore wind project with 400 megawatts capacity off the coast of Fujian province.
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