A 'golden sun' that turns skies bluer, grasslands greener
The Inner Mongolia autonomous region is a flowing epic stretching across China's northern frontier, a romantic land woven by wind and grass, where a thousand years of nomadic culture continue to flow through the depths of its vast grasslands. The deserts of the north, once traversed only by solitary geese soaring overhead, are now covered by vast fields of photovoltaic panels that shimmer in the sunlight.
From small beginnings to large-scale development, and from a fledgling industry to a powerful new sector, the rapidly growing photovoltaic industry has become a "golden sun" for Inner Mongolia — making its skies bluer, its grasslands greener and its people more prosperous, while striking root in new industries and helping traditional industries transform and upgrade.
Today, when people think of Inner Mongolia, they may picture not only its vast grasslands, delicious beef and mutton, and seemingly endless deserts, but also the "photovoltaic great wall" built along the desert, the streams of data powered by solar and wind power, and the green computing centers scattered across the region.
By the end of 2025, solar power generation in Inner Mongolia had reached 62.40 billion kilowatt-hours, accounting for 7.17 percent of the region's total electricity generation and 5.32 percent of China's total grid-connected solar power generation, ranking sixth nationwide.
Electricity generated from solar power and delivered to the grid reached 57.08 billion kilowatt-hours, equivalent to 10.41 percent of the region's total social electricity consumption, up 3.19 percent year-on-year.
Inner Mongolia is rich in solar resources. Its annual total solar radiation ranges from 1,342 to 1,948 kWh per square meter, while annual sunshine duration ranges from 2,600 to 3,400 hours, making it one of the country's regions with richest solar resources. The solar resources increase as we travel from east to west, with the deserts, barren lands and Gobi areas in the west enjoying particularly abundant solar radiation. All Inner Mongolia cities and leagues stretching from east to west have very rich solar resources.
Inner Mongolia plans to add 30 million kilowatts of installed power capacity every year during the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) period. The vast majority of the new capacity is expected to come from green power sources such as the sun and the wind. By 2030, the region's installed renewable energy capacity is expected to reach 325 million kW.
As one of China's major energy bases, Inner Mongolia has long relied on coal, coal-fired power generation, coal chemicals and other coal- and electricity-intensive industries as major pillars of its economy. With China implementing its new energy security strategy; with its ecological conservation taking place in Northeast China, North China and Northwest China; and with the country's advancing of its twin goals of peaking carbon emissions by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060, Inner Mongolia has embarked on a new model of energy-driven economic development.
Since the last decade, clean energy industries such as solar and wind power have risen rapidly in Inner Mongolia. They have become new engines of high-quality regional economic growth, while also contributing significantly to improvements in energy consumption and supply structures across the region and the country.
More importantly, the development of clean energy has created new pilot projects and application scenarios for transforming the way energy is produced and consumed, as well as for technological and institutional innovation. It has also helped the region increase its supply of green electricity to the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and China's southeastern coastal areas.
Breakthrough development of photovoltaic industry
Inner Mongolia began exploring the development and use of new energy as early as the late 1950s and continued those efforts through the late 1970s. During this period, Inner Mongolia University conducted research on solar cell materials. At that time, new energy development was limited in scale and scattered across different locations.
In the early 1980s, the autonomous region established a group to provide unified leadership and coordination for the development and utilization of renewable energy across the region. It also formulated development goals suited to Inner Mongolia's specific conditions.
In 1986, the regional government issued regulations and formulated measures to provide financial support for the promotion of small wind turbines and solar cells. These measures became the first local government support policies for new energy development in China.
A major breakthrough came in 2012, when the central government issued the plan for solar power development during the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15). From that point onward, Inner Mongolia's new-energy sector shifted from primarily meeting basic household energy needs toward a combination of household and productive uses, and from reliance on individual energy sources toward an integrated approach based on complementary energy sources.
During the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20) period, Inner Mongolia made new energy a major focus of its energy transition and vigorously developed renewable energy led by wind and solar power.
With more than 2,800 hours of sunshine a year on average and vast areas of desertified land, Inner Mongolia was among the first regions in the country to develop photovoltaic projects in areas such as Ordos and Alshaa. Innovative models such as "photovoltaics+desertification control" and "photovoltaics+pastoralism" have created a win-win outcome for ecological restoration and energy production.
In 2022, the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration officially launched large-scale wind and photovoltaic bases focusing on the deserts, Gobi areas and other arid areas.
Some projects were in Inner Mongolia or involved the region. The first batch of large-scale wind and photovoltaic bases were not only energy projects , but also the ones with integrated initiatives combining ecological restoration with the energy revolution, designed to concentrate development in these areas. By 2030, the total installed capacity of large-scale wind and solar power bases, with a focus on desert, Gobi, and barren land areas, will reach 455 million kW.
The first project is the Kubuqi Desert Central and Northern Ordos Base in Inner Mongolia. It is the world's largest photovoltaic project in a desert, with total installed capacity exceeding 16 million kW. Its defining feature is the integration of photovoltaic generation with desertification control.
The second project in Inner Mongolia is the Kubuqi Desert Southern Ordos Base. Together with the northern base, it forms a coordinated development pattern covering large parts of the Kubuqi Desert. The project adopts a model in which electricity is generated above the panels while crops and vegetation are cultivated underneath, highlighting the ecological benefits of combining photovoltaic generation with desertification control.
The third project is the southeastern Tengger Desert Base, located in an area spanning the Ningxia Hui autonomous region and Inner Mongolia. With a total planned capacity of about 12 million kW, it serves as a test case for cross-provincial and cross-regional cooperation in both renewable energy development and ecological governance.
The fourth project is the Ulan Buh Desert Base, with a capacity exceeding 10 million kW. Located in Bayannuur and Alshaa, it lies close to the Yellow River's distinctive U-shaped bend, and has major ecological significance. One of its key objectives is to contain the sources of sand that threaten surrounding pastoral areas and towns.
The fifth project is the Badain Jaran Desert Base, which spans Inner Mongolia and Gansu province. The Badain Jaran is China's second-largest shifting desert and has exceptionally rich wind and solar resources. The project combines wind and photovoltaic power generation and is supported by ultra-high-voltage transmission infrastructure.
Application drives manufacturing. In recent years, Inner Mongolia has leveraged a combination of advantages, including relatively low electricity costs from renewable energy and national policies accelerating the development of large-scale wind and solar bases in western China. Cities including Baotou, Ordos, Hohhot and Tongliao have become major centers for the development of a distinctive photovoltaic manufacturing industry.
The region has established a relatively complete photovoltaic manufacturing chain covering polysilicon, silicon wafers, solar cells, modules and photovoltaic mounting systems. At the same time, Inner Mongolia has developed a rational industrial layout on the basis of local resources, manufacturing foundations, supporting capabilities and market conditions. This has attracted many leading companies from across China's solar industry to invest and build factories in the region.
Baotou, for example, focuses on core manufacturing segments in the upstream and midstream parts of the industry. It has attracted leading photovoltaic manufacturers and developed major production bases for polysilicon and monocrystalline silicon rods.
Hohhot and Ordos focus mainly on photovoltaic cells and module manufacturing; Tongliao and surrounding areas focus on photovoltaic mounting systems.
A profound transformation from old growth drivers to new ones
For decades, Inner Mongolia, one of the regions with the richest coal reserves in China, played an indispensable role in supplying coal and electricity to the country. Coal mining, thermal power generation and coal chemicals once dominated the economies of the region as a whole and of areas such as Ordos and Wuhai. These industries were also major sources of employment and local fiscal revenue.
But this relatively single-track energy-based economic model has proven unsustainable in practice. At various stages, it placed considerable pressure on resources and caused environmental problems.
The first major issue was ecological degradation. Poorly planned large-scale open-pit coal mining contributed to grassland degradation, desertification and excessive groundwater extraction, affecting both local ecosystems and the broader grassland environment.
The second was environmental pollution. Coal-fired power plants and coal chemical facilities operating under relatively low emissions-control standards released large amounts of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter, worsening air pollution.
The third was the risk of resource depletion. Excessive short-term reliance on coal and traditional industries caused mineral resources in some areas to decline and posed serious challenges to sustainable economic development.
Although this stage of Inner Mongolia's economic development was relatively brief and has largely become a thing of the past, remnants of the old development model can still be seen in some areas.
Therefore, as China moves toward modernization and the building of a Beautiful China, the question of what kind of energy-based economy Inner Mongolia should develop is about far more than optimizing its energy supply and consumption structure or adjusting its industrial structure. At its core, it represents a fundamental shift in the development philosophy itself.
Guided by national policies, Inner Mongolia has, since 2018, promoted the clean and efficient use of coal and the green and low-carbon transformation of traditional industries. It has also worked to develop non-coal energy sources and non-coal industries while promoting the green and low-carbon transformation of coal-fired power generation and coal chemical industries.
At the same time, the region established a 20-billion-yuan ($2.98 billion) green development fund to support renewable energy projects and accelerate the formation of a diversified energy supply system driven by coal, oil, natural gas, new energy and other renewable energy sources. In terms of technological innovation, Inner Mongolia has also made significant progress in both traditional and renewable energy.
Today, Inner Mongolia's economic and industrial structures have changed dramatically. The value added of strategic emerging industries has maintained an average annual growth rate of more than 12 percent for several consecutive years.
The large-scale development of solar and wind power and the rise of renewable energy equipment manufacturing have not only reshaped Inner Mongolia's energy economy, but also given the region's role as a major national energy security base a distinctly new character.
Inner Mongolia can still supply more than 1 billion metric tons of coal to the country each year and provide substantial amounts of electricity for transmission to other regions. But increasingly, it can also supply green electricity and clean fuels such as green hydrogen, ammonia and methanol, providing new sources of energy and momentum for green and low-carbon development across China.
Inner Mongolia's experience demonstrates the development philosophy that "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets". By developing photovoltaic desertification-control models, the region has found more effective ways to combine ecological restoration with the expansion of clean energy.
By innovating models that integrate energy development with industrial development, Inner Mongolia has fostered a number of green-power industrial parks and green data centers. These initiatives have opened new pathways for the green and low-carbon transformation of traditional industries while creating room for emerging industries to grow.
From a "sea of coal" to a national leader in wind and solar power, Inner Mongolia has seen its renewable energy equipment industries — covering wind, solar, hydrogen and energy storage — continue to expand. This transformation has not only reshaped the region's energy and industrial landscape, but also demonstrated a viable path for resource-rich regions to achieve green transformation.
The green transformation represents a shift from a traditional development model to a new development philosophy. It also offers valuable experience for renewable energy resource-rich regions around the world seeking sustainable development.
Against the backdrop of the global transition toward carbon neutrality, Inner Mongolia's story of green transformation is entering a new chapter.
The author is former director of the Energy Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission.
The views don't necessarily represent those of China Daily.
If you have a specific expertise, or would like to share your thought about our stories, then send us your writings at opinion@chinadaily.com.cn, and comment@chinadaily.com.cn.
