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Haley Zaremba
Haley Zaremba is an energy journalist and researcher with more than a decade of professional experience covering global energy systems, land and natural resources, and…
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China has driven the world’s solar energy deployment, adding capacity at such a blistering rate that the nation’s existing and planned wind and solar generation nearly doubles the rest of the world put together. However, China’s deployment of supportive infrastructure for all that new solar has not kept pace, leading to curtailment during peak hours and increased quantities of wasted clean energy. But Beijing is working hard to fix that problem, and a brand new, state-of-the-art thermal solar farm may provide a critical solution.
A massive molten-salt thermal solar plant just got one big step closer to completion in southwest China’s Xizang Autonomous Region. The 100-megawatt (MW), 8.6 million square-foot facility just reached a milestone, installing 15,927 heliostats across a solar field. Heliostats are mirrors that are able to track and follow the movement of the sun, adapting to catch its rays and beam them back to a central tower, which in turn heats molten salt.
This thermal energy can then be converted into electricity as needed. Critically, molten salt is able to hold onto excess energy for far longer than traditional lithium-ion batteries, offering a much-needed energy storage solution and allowing solar energy plants to continue to produce long after the sun has set. In this way, molten-salt thermal solar is better able to respond and adapt to demand curves and avoid wasting energy at peak production times.
The environment where the solar field is being installed is a tricky one, as Amdo County, Nagqu, is at high elevation and experiences extremely harsh weather patterns, including severe cold temperatures and high winds. But the region also receives more than 2,800 hours of sunshine each year, making it an attractive option for this kind of solar megaproject. Plus, it will serve as an important testing ground to find new ways to provide stable, reliable, and clean energy to remote areas with weak grids and harsh conditions.
“The combination of concentrated solar technology, thermal storage, and automated controls is intended to allow the plant to operate reliably despite the demanding plateau environment,” Interesting Engineering reports.
This technology is not new – molten-salt thermal has been touted for its potential to provide round-the-clock clean energy for years now, and the United States built its own megaproject years ago, the Crescent Dunes solar plant developed by SolarReserve in Nevada. But Crescent Dunes is considered by many to be a failure.
“The steam generators at Crescent Dunes require custom parts and a staff of dozens to keep things humming and to conduct regular maintenance,” Bloomberg reported back in 2020. “By the time the plant opened in 2015, the increased efficiency of cheap solar panels had already surpassed its technology, and today it’s obsolete—the latest panels can pump out power at a fraction of the cost for decades with just an occasional hosing-down.”
But China’s new project has the opportunity to learn from Crescent Dunes’ mistakes, and is being built on a much faster timeline, with grid connection targeted for October 2026. It’s also just one of several next-gen solar-plus-storage models that Beijing is piloting around the country. Just last month, China connected the world’s biggest hybrid solar plant to the grid. The 1 GW plant, situated in the Gobi Desert, combines traditional solar panels with a molten salt thermal battery, which can store energy for up to eight hours overnight.
However, while China is continuing to build out solar generation capacity and push the envelope on next-gen solar-plus-storage technologies, experts expect that China’s years-long solar bonanza is finally set to slow down. After years of rapid buildout of production with insufficient investment in transmission and storage, it’s turned into a hurry-up-and-wait scenario as production outstrips delivery. “In its latest five-year plan, the country announced a series of measures to increase renewables consumption, rather than production, by more than 50%,” notes a recent report from Fortune.
Plus, China’s solar stocks are currently facing extreme volatility thanks to a combination of domestic policy changes and foreign tariffs, with a ‘whipsaw week’ last week. “The bumpy ride underscored the dual realities facing China’s solar industry, with domestic efforts aiming to curb overcapacity and external trade barriers that complicate manufacturers’ global presence,” a Bloomberg report explains.
By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com
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Haley Zaremba is an energy journalist and researcher with more than a decade of professional experience covering global energy systems, land and natural resources, and…
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