Huanghe Hydropower Development, a subsidiary of the Chinese state-owned State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC), has connected a 2.2 GW solar plant in a desert in the Qinghai province (north-western China) to the grid. The CNY15bn (US$2.2bn) project also includes 203 MW/MWh of storage capacity. Construction started in November 2019 and was completed in September 2020. The solar project is connected to an ultra high-voltage (8 GW) power line built by State grid of China to connect northwestern provinces to the eastern provinces across Qinghai, Gansu, Shaanxi and Henan provinces.
Solar power accounts for 10% of China’s installed capacity, with 205 GW (2019).