Power 
︎ Moves
Why China Built 162 Square Miles of Solar Panels on the World’s Highest Plateau
Reporting from Gonghe on the Tibetan Plateau
On the Tibetan Plateau, nearly 10,000 feet high, solar panels stretch to the horizon and cover an area seven times the size of Manhattan. They soak up sunlight that is much brighter than at sea level because the air is so thin.
Wind turbines dot nearby ridgelines and stand in long rows across arid, empty plains above the occasional sheep herder with his flock. They capture night breezes, balancing the daytime power from the solar panels. Hydropower dams sit where rivers spill down long chasms at the edges of the plateau. And high-voltage power lines carry all this electricity to businesses and homes more than 1,000 miles away.
China is building an enormous network of clean energy industries on the Tibetan Plateau, the world’s highest. The intention is to harness the region’s bright sunshine, cold temperatures and sky-touching altitude to provide low-cost, renewable energy. The result is enough renewable energy to provide the plateau with nearly all of the power it needs, including for data centers used in China’s artificial intelligence development
While China still burns as much coal as the rest of the world combined, last month President Xi Jinping made a stunning pledge. Speaking before the United Nations, he said for the first time that the country would reduce its greenhouse gas emissions across its economy and would expand renewable energy sixfold in coming years. It was a moment of global significance for the nation that is currently the world’s biggest polluter.
China’s clean energy efforts contrast with the ambitions of the United States under the Trump administration, which is using its diplomatic and economic muscle to pressure other countries to buy more American gas, oil and coal. China is investing in cheaper solar and wind technology, along with batteries and electric vehicles, with the aim of becoming the world’s supplier of renewable energy and the products that rely on it.
The main group of solar farms, known as the Talatan Solar Park, dwarfs every other cluster of solar farms in the world. It covers 162 square miles in Gonghe County, an alpine desert in sparsely inhabited Qinghai, a province in western China.
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