Solar Container Farm China

How will China's massive solar farm work?

Workers prepare panels that will be part of the massive solar farm. A worker carries two flotation devices that keep the panels above water. China is now the world’s largest renewable energy investor. The government promises to spend $360 billion on clean energy projects by 2020, creating 13 million new jobs in the process.

How big is China's solar farm?

Correction: My story initially stated that the solar farm is on 200,000 acres. The original Chinese source says the area is 200,000 mu, a Chinese unit representing 1/15 hectares, so the total area is about 33,000 acres. The story also stated that the solar farm is 5 GW. It has been corrected to 3.5 GW.

Where are China's megabase solar farms located?

The megabase projects are sited in sparsely populated, resource-rich areas and send their generated energy to major urban centers, such as on China’s eastern seaboard. China now boasts the three largest solar farms in the world by capacity. The Ningxia Tenggeli and Golmud Wutumeiren solar farms, each with a capacity of 3 GW, are already online.

How do floating solar farms work?

A worker carries a flotation device. A section of panels is pushed into the water. Like regular solar farms, floating solar technology is not new, and has been used before in Japan, Israel and the U.K. But China again wins on scale.

Are solar panels a good investment in China?

China has been installing solar panels far faster than anywhere else in the world, and the investment is starting to pay off. A study released Thursday found that the country’s carbon emissions edged down 1% in the first six months of 2025 compared to a year earlier, extending a trend that began in March 2024.

How much electricity does a solar farm generate a year?

The solar farm will generate about 6.09 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity annually. Assuming an EV consumes about 3,000 kWh per year, 6.09 billion kWh could power 2.03 million EVs annually. The world’s largest solar farm in Xinjiang is part of China’s megabase project, a plan to install 455 GW of wind and solar.