The country has just opened a 3.5 GW solar megafarm in a desert area of the Xinjiang region
China has been repeatedly demonstrating two of its great obsessions for two years: mega-constructions and renewable energies, a sector in which it stands out both for its generation capacity and for its weight in the supply chain. In Xinjiang he has just gained muscle with both. Just a few days ago, a state company connected what it claims to be the largest solar farm in the world there, a large 3.5 gigawatt installation that extends over more than 13,300 hectares and could supply all of Papua New Guinea or Luxembourg. .
The farm has, however, an effect less desired by Beijing: drawing attention to the repression of the Uyghur people in Xinjinag, which has been denounced for years by international organizations and its impact on the renewable energy sector itself.
An XXL solar plant. And not just anyone. What CGDG and Power Construction Corp of China (PowerChina) have just activated is the largest solar farm on the planet, an installation that came into operation last week. The 3.5 GW plant extends across 32,947 acres, equivalent to 13,333 hectares, according to data reported by the Reuters agency. To deploy it, the technicians have chosen the northwest of the country, in the autonomous region of Xinjiang. To be more precise, they have set their sights on a desert area of Urumqi, their capital.
Energy for a country. Those responsible estimate that the facility will be capable of generating around 6.09 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) per year, enough to supply energy to Papua New Guinea for 12 months, according to Reuters calculations. Other estimates indicate that its capacity would almost cover all the electricity demand registered in Luxembourg.
Its power will further strengthen China’s muscle in renewable generation, which has already experienced a significant rebound in 2023. Data released in January by the National Energy Agency show that in 2023 the solar electricity generation capacity installed throughout the country increased by 55.2%.
Expanding the Chinese footprint. The truth is that China already had two of the largest solar installations in the world: Ningxia Tennggeli, from Longyuan Power Group, and Qinghai Golmud Wutumeiren. Its capacity would be around 3 GW. The Asian giant also has some record installations for floating wind or photovoltaic production. In fact, the Xinjiang park is part of an even larger project to install 455 GW of solar and wind power and that includes megabases in sparsely populated areas from which energy is sent to urban centers.
It matters what, how much… And where. The new solar farm is located in a desert area of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, which stands out on the Chinese map of solar and wind energy. Because of its weight. And also because of the controversy that accompanies it. In the region, important infrastructures dedicated to renewables have been promoted, such as the Urumqi Dabancheng, and record infrastructures, but Xinjiang is also in the international spotlight due to the repression that, according to different international organizations, the Uyghurs have suffered there.
A controversy that affects the sector. In 2021, Amnesty International (AI) spoke of the “mass imprisonment, torture and systematic persecution” of Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, a campaign organized by the State and which in its opinion constitute “crimes against humanity.” The UN itself issued a report in 2022 on Xinjiang in which he warned of “serious human rights violations” against Uyghurs and other Muslim communities.
What happened in Xinjiang would also directly affect the renewable energy sector. In 2021 William Alan Reinsch and Seán Arrieta-Kenna pointed out at CSIS that a large part of the manufacturing of solar panels depends on components made precisely in Xinjiang, which places the focus on the conditions offered to workers there. Their article was in fact titled “A dark spot for the solar energy industry: Forced labor in Xinjiang.”
The origin of polysilicon. “Residential, commercial and utility solar panels rely on photovoltaic (PV) cells to absorb and convert sunlight into usable energy. Most photovoltaic cells are manufactured with polysilicon components and these are produced using a furnace process industrial sector that requires extremely high temperatures. Xinjiang, with some of the cheapest energy in China thanks to the local abundance of coal, has become home to four of the five largest factories in the world.
After recalling the weight of the region in the sector, the article by Reinsch and Arrieta-Kenna states that between 2010 and 2020, China’s footprint in global polysilicon production grew exponentially, from 26 to 82%, while The US was losing ground at an equally accelerated speed. “According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s Jenny Chase, ‘almost all silicon-based solar modules (at least 95% of the market) are likely to contain some Xinjiang silicon.'”
The link with Xinjiang. At the beginning of that same year The New York Times echoed a report by consultancy Horizon Advisory that suggested links between Xinjiang’s growing photovoltaic sector and “a broad program of assigned work in China that includes methods that conform to documented patterns of forced labor.” The study cites important companies in the sector and, always according to information from the New York newspaper, presents “indications” of the use of forced labor, employees transferred with government support from points in Xinjiang and even the application of “military-style” training. “.
“Extensive and increasing evidence. They are not the only ones. Sheffield Hallam University even produced a study that, in its opinion, “reveals the ways in which forced labor in the Uyghur region can permeate an entire supply chain and reach international markets.” In the opinion of its researchers, solar is a “particularly vulnerable” industry to ending up linked to this practice because the region’s polysilicon manufacturers account for 45% of the global supply of solar-quality material, and they warn of employment programs that are being implemented. develop in “an environment of unprecedented coercion” and under “constant threat.”
To the order of the day. Concerns about the impact of this type of work continue to hover over the renewable energy sector in China, as recently reported by Semafor and Sourcing Journal, which warned a few months ago that the solar energy industry or electric cars are “very exposed.” to the risks of forced labor due to Xinjiang’s significant weight in the supply chain for solar-grade polysilicon and lithium, nickel and graphite used in lithium-ion batteries for vehicles. From the sector there are already voices, such as Skyline International, that demand greater transparency throughout the supply chain.
Image | PowerChina
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