China And Solar Power

While often criticized for its poor environmental record, China has taken the lead in one key are: solar power. The country’s skies and rivers are turning gray and black, but there are signs that things at least have the potential to turn around. In fact, on nearly every street corner in China there is a visible indicator that there is a desire to change course. Next time you are walking around a residential neighborhood, look up. If you do odds are you will notice large solar powered waters tank on the roofs.

Coal power is still the dominant source of energy in China and will be long into the future, pouring millions of tons of soot into the air. In the area of water heating, however, solar energy has become the biggest player. According to a spate of recent reports solar energy heats 80% of the country’s water. From east to west dealers of solar power water systems (*3ýý�) thrive with the help of government subsidies. So big has the industry grown that the second richest man in China (bumped from his perch last year) made his fortune in the industry.

China’s experimentation with solar energy has not been limited to water however. A number of creative idea for implementing the world’s most plentiful resource have cropped up around the country. In the Xinjiang deserts China Mobile has signal towers set up that power themselves, miles away from the central energy grid. Even in Beijing, where you can never be too far from an electrical source, many of the local street advertisements are equipped with solar panels to light them at night.

What does all of this mean for the trajectory of the Chinese environment? Perhaps not all that much. Cars and industry are what is darkening the skies. Estimates indicate that more than a thousand cars a day are added to the streets in Beijing alone. This combined with massive coal power plants that are required for heavy industry are what is choking the country. As has been widely reported, in August the government will target this problem by forcing a million cars off the road to attempt to clear the air as a test run for the Olympics (most will be government, not private cars incidentally). During the Olympics factories near Beijing will be shuttered for at least two weeks.

Forcing cars off the road and closing industry, however, is not a sustainable long-term solution, if for no other reason than it is unrealistic. Instead it is a short-term stop-gap. In contrast, solar energy could help considerably. There have been large-scale attempts to increase the country’s output of solar power energy through the traditional power station model. However a household by household movement might make more sense since those stations need to be in distant locations like Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia meaning power is lost along the way.

It will never fully displace power stations around the country, but if it can start to replace coal as a power source for even a fraction of the growth in the energy demand it could make a big difference. Chinese people are already used to installing and using solar power equipment. The trick will be getting them to use it for more than just water, and convincing industry to use it on a wide scale. If China can make that jump they’ll be on their way to a much sunnier future.

By: China-Expat

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This story was written for Chinaexpat.com, a site about living and working in China. The site was established by Chris Devonshire-Ellis, who is also the founder of China business advisory firm, Dezan Shira & Associates.