The world’s largest solar farm has been commissioned and the amount of electricity it can produce is gargantuan.
With over 800 square kilometers of photovoltaic panels, a little more than the area of New York City, China has just made a big impact in the race for energy sovereignty. This new solar farm, located in a desert area in the far northwest of the country, in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, is now the largest ever built. This podium is completed by the solar projects in the Ningxia Teneggeli desert and Golmud Wutumeiren, both also located in China.
The solar complex was connected to the Chinese grid on June 3, 2024, and is expected to generate 5 gigawatt hours, or just over one and a half times more than a solar farm could previously produce. With the new facility, China is further cementing its position as the world’s largest solar energy producer and is expected to control 80% of global PV panel production, according to consulting firm Wood Mackenzie. A recent report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) called China’s move toward renewable energy “extraordinary,” with the country commissioning “as many solar panels as the entire world by 2022” last year.
With an annual capacity of more than 6 billion kilowatt hours, the Chinese solar power plant alone could cover the electricity needs of some countries such as Luxembourg or Papua New Guinea. For China, it is a completely different story, on a national scale the annual electricity consumption is around 9,220 terawatt hours (9 thousand billion kilowatt hours) or almost a quarter of the world’s energy.
China remains the world’s largest consumer of electricity, just ahead of the United States, India and Russia, and its electricity consumption continues to increase. It is also the world’s largest emitter of energy-related greenhouse gases and is continuing its industrialization. Chinese President Xi Jinping has committed to the country reaching its peak CO2 emissions before 2030 and carbon neutrality before 2060. It should be noted, however, that China has a population of 1.4 billion, three times more than the United States and ten times more than Russia, while the two world superpowers consume only half as much electricity. In addition, electricity consumption per capita is much lower than in France (15% in 2021) and the United States (53%).