In July 2022, the China Energy Construction Corporation began construction of the first solar thermal storage demonstration project in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China, with 10 MW of therm.
The country has already surpassed this initial goal, two years ahead of schedule. According to China's National Energy Administration, the country's overall capacity in the new-type energy storage sector reached 31.4 GW by the end of 2023. It increased capacity year-on-year by more than 260%, and almost 10 times since 2020.
Solar power contributes to a small portion of China's total energy use, accounting for 3.5% of China's total energy capacity in 2020. Chinese President Xi Jinping announced at the 2020 Climate Ambition Summit that China plans to have 1,200 GW of combined solar and wind energy capacity by 2030.
A large part of the solar power capacity installed in China is in the form of large PV power plants in the west of the country, an area much less populated than the eastern part but with better solar resources and available land.
What are the benefits of energy storage power plants?
The energy storage power plants help improve the utilization rate of wind power, solar and other renewable sources, thus promoting the proportion of new energy consumption. In the first half of 2023, China's installed renewable energy capacity surpassed coal power for the first time in history.
As such, critics argue that investments into renewable energy sources such as solar power are means to increase the power of the central state rather than protect the environment. This argument has been complemented by China's expansion of fossil fuel plants in conjunction with solar energy.
Since China is responsible for 80% of the world's polysilicon production, with half of the world's polysilicon produced in Xinjiang, many critics of the forced labor usage have stated that it is difficult for many countries to avoid Chinese made solar power solutions.