“Aerial Footage Captures the ‘Unimaginable’ in China: Their Dominance in This Field is Unmatched”

A viral video on social media revealed an impressive landscape: the entire mountain range of Guizhou Province, China, blanketed with solar panels. This aerial view gives a sense of the scale of these solar farms and showcases China’s dominance in global solar energy production.

Guizhou, with its rugged terrain, unpredictable weather, and low agricultural potential, has become a success story in China’s renewable energy journey. The province’s first solar power system was introduced in 2015, but significant growth took place only recently. By 2018, solar energy in Guizhou generated 1.75 million kilowatts annually. With government subsidies, easy bank financing, and vast unused land, solar power in Guizhou surged from 1.75 million kilowatts in 2018 to 10 million kilowatts in 2020 and further to 15 million kilowatts in 2023.

This solar boom is a crucial component of China’s plan to triple its renewable energy output by 2030, a goal that may be achieved ahead of schedule. As of 2024, China accounts for 64% of global utility-scale solar and wind projects, with 339 gigawatt-hours of renewable energy under construction, far surpassing the next four countries combined: the US, the UK, Brazil, and Spain, which have 72 gigawatts.

While China still relies heavily on coal (accounting for about 57% of its energy grid), its significant strides toward renewable energy are undeniable.

China dominates the world in solar panel manufacturing. Polysilicon is the key material used in these panels, and its production and refinement from raw materials is energy-intensive. Chinese factories use coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, to power their polysilicon plants.

Due to the low cost of coal, it also reduces the production cost of solar panels in China compared to using more expensive or cleaner energy sources. Polysilicon is produced from quartz sand, a primary component of solar panels or modules. Converting quartz into polysilicon requires extremely high temperatures and a complex refinement process involving chemicals and distillation to achieve nearly 100% purity. In 2023, Chinese companies manufactured 93% of the world’s polysilicon.

Michael Liebreich, a veteran analyst of clean energy technology and economics, remarked that in 2004, it took the world a year to install one gigawatt of solar power capacity; by 2010, it took a month; in 2016, a week. In 2023, a gigawatt was installed globally in just one day.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) notes that buying and installing solar panels is now the most significant investment in energy production, totaling $500 billion, nearly matching upstream oil and gas investment.

The International Solar Energy Association predicts that by 2026, solar energy will generate more power than all the world’s nuclear power plants combined, surpassing wind turbines in 2027, dams in 2028, gas-fired power plants in 2030, and coal-fired plants by 2032.

A 2022 article by Rupert Way of the University of Oxford and colleagues predicts a “rapid transition” by 2070 if costs for solar and other new technologies continue to fall sharply. By 2070, solar power will become the dominant energy source, outpacing other sources, including fossil fuels and other renewables.

According to Wonderful Engineering and Climate Adaption Platform