More Gobi green projects in pipeline

Construction of the second batch of massive wind and solar power projects in China's Gobi Desert and other arid regions will start soon, as the government has recently begun accepting project applications for the second phase of renewable projects in the area amid the latest effort to accelerate the planning and construction of large-scale wind and solar projects in the country.

The second phase of the wind and solar power projects will still focus on the Gobi and other sandy and rocky regions. Companies are required to submit their project proposals to the National Energy Administration and the National Development and Reform Commission－China's top economic regulator－by Dec 15, the administration was quoted as saying by China Securities Journal.

The administration said the second phase of the projects should be able to start construction in 2022, and begin operations and get connected to the grid by 2023, and no later than 2024 for those restricted by external conditions.

The scale of individual units should be no less than 100 million kilowatts and for consortiums participating in the project, participants should be no more than two, it said.

An analyst said with costs for wind and solar projects gradually decreasing, the massive wind and solar power facilities in the country's Gobi and other desert areas will further facilitate the country's ambition of reaching more than 1,200 gigawatts of installed solar and wind capacity by 2030.

Luo Zuoxian, head of intelligence and research at the Sinopec Economics and Development Research Institute, said regions with abundant solar and wind resources, including the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, the Ningxia Hui autonomous region, the Inner Mongolia autonomous region and Qinghai province, should take the lead in developing clean energy in China.

With decreasing costs of wind turbines and photovoltaic systems, it is believed that the development of clean energy in China will further accelerate to ensure the country sees its nonfossil fuels account for 25 percent of China's total energy consumption mix by the end of 2030, Luo said.

Wei Hanyang, a power market analyst at research firm BloombergNEF, said the development of desert-based renewable projects will highly depend on the construction of grid-connected cables, considering that the plants' locations are often not proximate to the main grid.

China has been working on a massive renewable energy project, with its first phase comprising 100 GW of wind and solar in the desert having launched operations recently.

Companies like oil giant China National Petroleum Corp, top five domestic power producer State Power Investment Corp and the world's largest refiner China Petrochemical Corp, are all drawing up plans to develop clean energy projects in the Gobi and other arid regions of China.