Story by Jonathan Marerwa in Ningxia Province, China
The abundance of sunshine in Africa makes the continent a perfect place to introduce solar farms at a large scale.
The chief engineer of the Maintenance Center of Zhongwei Longyuan New Energy Company in Ningxia Province in North West China, Pan Zhan’guo said this while addressing 14 journalists from English-speaking countries from Africa and the Asia Pacific region.
He disclosed that the energy company which is under the China Energy Group, has so far established a plant in South Africa and that it is ready and willing to help any African country with the establishment of such infrastructure.
Chief Engineer Pan, who was speaking during a media tour of the New Energy Base Project in the Tengger Desert in Ningxia, the Zhongwei Desert Photovoltaic Industrial Park, said the success of the South African plant has encouraged them to seek more synergies with African companies that need to construct similar infrastructure.
He revealed that on completion, the Industrial Park will produce 13 million kilowatts of solar power.
Chief Engineer Pan noted that once the project is fully implemented, it will save one comma 92 tonnes of standard coal, while reducing four comma 66 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year.
Meanwhile, Chief Engineer Pan says the first phase of the project has increased vegetation coverage from five to 25 percent.
He added that ecological restoration has seen sand barriers set around the site with grass squares having been laid and shrubs, fruit trees, grass, vegetables and mushrooms being grown under the canopy of the solar panels.
The project is greatly contributing to China’s power grid while also promoting the usage of clean and low carbon energy.
