The solar Great Wall: China’s massive desert project

The Junma Solar Power Station, completed in 2019, holds the record for the largest image made with solar panels and generates 2 billion kWh per year. China, with 386,875 MW of operational solar capacity, is the world leader, followed by the United States and India.

Right in the middle of China’s Kubuqi Desert-often described as a “sea of death” against its strong gales of sand-vast and barren, a gigantic solar farm has been converting sunlight into clean energy.

As part of its long-term plan to create a “solar Great Wall,” China is pressing ahead with a giant renewable energy project to electrify Beijing and reverse desertification.

Dual-purpose infrastructure

It is not just a matter of electricity generation at the solar farm. The installation plays a key role in slowing the expansion of deserts. The solar panels provide shade, which allows vegetation to grow beneath them, thereby supporting livestock farming as cattle graze on crops that thrive in the newly protected environment.

By 2030, the completed solar wall will be 250 miles long and 3 miles wide, capable of producing 100 gigawatts of power. Chinese officials so far report about 5.4 gigawatts have been installed.

Satellite imagery shows the expansion

A series of images from NASA’s Landsat 8 and 9 satellites, each with an Operational Land Imager (OLI) and OLI-2 respectively, have documented the region’s expanding solar farms. These images, from December 2017 to December 2024, put into perspective how fast the project has developed.

The galloping horse solar farm

The Junma Solar Power Station, completed in 2019, is arguably the most striking feature of this project. Designed in the shape of a galloping horse, it earned a Guinness World Record for the largest image made with solar panels. It will generate about 2 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year, which can satisfy the energy consumption of 300,000 to 400,000 people. In Mandarin, “Junma” means “good horse.”.

China leads the global solar race

China is the undisputed leader in terms of the installed capacity of solar power as of June 2024 with 386,875 megawatts of operational solar energy-roughly 51% of the global total. The Global Solar Power Tracker by Global Energy Monitor puts the United States at second place with 79,364 megawatts at 11%, followed by India at third with 53,114 megawatts at 7%.

This has been especially fast over the last ten years in China. In fact, from 2017 through 2023, China added an average of 39,994 megawatts to its operational solar capacity each year. By comparison, the United States added an average of 8,137 megawatts each year in the same period.

 

Images: NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.

Source: NASA