Remote prefecture turns excess solar into big data

Editor's note: As protection of the planet's flora, fauna and resources becomes increasingly important, China Daily is publishing a series of stories to illustrate the country's commitment to safeguarding the natural world.

On the windswept Talatan plain in Northwest China's Qinghai province, thousands of sheep graze beneath vast canopies of cobalt solar panels. For a decade, this fusion of pastoral agriculture and renewable energy turned a barren highland desert into an ecological success story. Today, however, regional authorities face a far more complex structural challenge: what to do with an overwhelming surge of green power that far outpaces local demand.

In response, Hainan Tibetan autonomous prefecture is executing a major strategic pivot, leveraging its massive energy surplus to transform from a simple power exporter into a high-altitude big data hub.

Local authorities have approved a 93-hectare green computing industry park in Chabcha town, the administrative seat of Gonghe county. The development has already secured 17 major projects representing 16.2 billion yuan ($2.3 billion) in total planned investment. The project is designed to process data for computing-intensive industries along China's populous eastern seaboard, including artificial intelligence model training, autonomous driving simulation and financial technology back-office operations.

The initiative directly addresses a severe economic imbalance. Last year, Hainan prefecture's clean-energy installations generated 47.7 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, yet local industrial and domestic consumption absorbed just 1.7 billion kWh — less than 4 percent of the total output. While ultra-high voltage transmission lines export a significant portion of this surplus across eastern provinces, grid constraints and line capacity limits during peak production hours continue to pose long-term curtailment risks.

"We are turning watts into bits," said Ma Xianping, deputy director of the Hainan Prefecture Data Bureau, describing the strategy to consume excess energy locally rather than relying exclusively on long-distance transmission infrastructure.

Chabcha town has natural advantages for developing data centers. With an average temperature of 4 C, the town enables fresh-air cooling for 330 days a year, reducing cooling costs — which typically account for nearly 40 percent of a facility's power consumption — by an estimated 30 percent and shortening payback periods by around two years. Additionally, the thin, dust-free highland air reduces particulate buildup on server components, extending hardware lifespans.

These conditions, Ma said, make green computing a natural fit.

Clean energy makes up 97.26 percent of the park's power supply, with a power usage effectiveness of about 1.1 — well below the national average of 1.35. Electricity costs of around 0.42 yuan per kWh are among the lowest in China.

Pastoral power

The digital expansion is being powered by the Talatan Photovoltaic Park, planned to cover 609 square kilometers on the plain. It is one of China's major gigawatt-level solar hubs and was certified in the Guinness World Records as the world's largest installed-capacity photovoltaic power generation. The green transformation is anchored in decades of ecological restoration efforts and rural livelihood gains, underpinned by legislative support.

Across Hainan prefecture, clean energy capacity has reached 36.58 million kW — 46 percent of the province's total — with cumulative investment of 180 billion yuan, and 68 major photovoltaic enterprises operating across the region.

The prefecture takes its name from its location south of Qinghai Lake. The Yellow River runs 411 kilometers through its five counties, while the headwaters of the Yangtze and Lancang rivers also originate in the broader Qinghai highland, making the region one of China's most ecologically consequential landscapes and one where the stakes of any industrial development are unusually high.

"With just one storm a year, from spring to winter's end; stones roll with the wind, and nothing will grow," said An Fengjun, deputy director of the prefecture's development and reform commission, reciting a local proverb. He said this used to be the stark reality of Talatan — roads swallowed by endless dunes, making every step a struggle.

The turnaround began in 2012, when construction of the photovoltaic park began. Local authorities realized the latent value of what had long been dismissed as wasteland. While facing severe desertification, Talatan offered nearly 3,000 hours of annual sunshine and vast stretches of flat, unused land — ideal conditions for utility-scale photovoltaics.

"What surprised us most was how quickly the land responded," An said. "The panels acted as windbreaks, cutting near-ground wind speeds by around half. Their shade reduced evaporation by about 30 percent, and rainwater together with panel-cleaning runoff seeped down along the supports, irrigating the soil."

An said that the ecological transformation came as an unexpected dividend. Within just a few years, vegetation cover, once negligible, recovered to more than 80 percent across the park. "On my way here this morning, I saw a hare darting across the road, and you can see foxes and even birds that had never been spotted here before," he said.

The lush growth, however, created a new problem: tall grass shading the panels and reducing power output, while dried winter grass raised wildfire risks. Manual clearing cost over 4 million yuan annually across the park before the arrival of what locals now call "photovoltaic sheep".

"The sheep eat the grass, and their manure fertilizes the soil, forming a virtuous cycle. Companies no longer spend huge sums on grass cutting, and herders get free pasture. It's a win for ecology, production and livelihoods," An said.

The park operates 14 photovoltaic pastures where more than 20,000 sheep graze from June through October under a scientifically managed rotation system. Panels are raised to around 1.5 meters and spaced wider to accommodate the herds. Surplus grass that the sheep cannot consume is given free to surrounding villages as winter fodder.

Zhou Jia, a deputy to the agriculture and environmental resources committee of the prefecture's people's congress, said the benefits extend beyond the fenced perimeter of Talatan. Given the plain's exceptional solar conditions, all five counties of Hainan prefecture have consolidated their village-level photovoltaic capacity — 50.5 megawatts shared across 173 villages.

"The model supports poverty alleviation," Zhou said, adding that village-level photovoltaic stations generated 32.78 million yuan in revenue in the first half of the year, averaging 189,500 yuan per village. Additionally, the stations fund 1,566 public welfare positions with monthly stipends of around 1,000 yuan.

Legal outreach

The transformation rests on a multitiered legal architecture.

At the national level, the Law on Prevention and Control of Desertification was adopted in 2001 and amended in 2023. Drawn from lessons learned in local practices, the Ecological and Environmental Code, which will take effect on Aug 15, stipulates that operators of photovoltaic projects and other commercial activities in desertified areas must implement measures to curb sand expansion. These laws have laid the groundwork for what has become the defining feature of Talatan — using photovoltaic installations as a tool for sand stabilization.

Zhou also pointed to the law on ecological protection of the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau, which came into force on Sept 1, 2023, giving statutory backing to the integrated clean-energy approach the prefecture has pioneered.

The law stipulates that the country supports building a clean-energy system dominated by sources including wind, solar, hydro, hydro-solar hybrid and geothermal across the plateau, while advancing green, low-carbon energy transitions. That provision codifies the plateau model of integrated renewable development that Hainan had been testing on the ground for more than a decade.

The Hainan model is anchored in the pairing of solar with the river. The Longyangxia Hydropower Station in the prefecture — known as the "first dam on the Yellow River" — is the backbone for China's first hydro-solar complementary system. The 850-megawatt Talatan Photovoltaic Park feeds its output into Longyangxia, with the two working as a single dispatchable unit.

"During the day, as solar output rises, hydropower dials back and water is stored. At night, the dam takes over, switching between sources within milliseconds," An said, noting that the hybrid model earned a Guinness World Record in 2022 as the world's largest water-solar complementary power station, and has since expanded past one gigawatt.

Building on these national and provincial legal frameworks, the prefecture's people's congress spent more than a year drafting its own regulation on promoting the development of the clean energy industry. The 34-article regulation, which will take effect on Sept 1, addresses grid integration bottlenecks, pricing mechanisms, storage infrastructure gaps and administrative procedures.

"Through legislation, clean energy development will become more standardized," said Ning Jianming, a deputy of the finance and economic affairs committee of the prefecture's people's congress. The drafting process began in 2024 with enterprise consultations, expert reviews and field investigations.

The regulation enshrines ecological protection as a nonnegotiable bottom line and mandates a recycling system for retired solar panels — a forward-looking provision given that the park's oldest arrays, installed around 2013, will approach their 25-year design life within a decade.

Ning said that the regulation is designed to align with those higher-level frameworks, turning policy guidance into tangible rules.

Zhou said that as legal outreach work continues, environmental stewardship has taken root in people's hearts. "The father protects the land, and the son inherits the benefit — that awareness is now deep in the bone," he said.

limenghan@chinadaily.com.cn