American satellites reveal China’s solar dominance

Solar energy is abundant. And China is making money.

Images captured by two earth-viewing satellites, operated by the US Geological Survey, have revealed the rapid expansion of solar farms in the remote northern part of China, in the Kubuqi Desert.

“The construction is part of China’s multi-year plan to build a ‘great solar wall’ designed to generate enough energy to power Beijing,” NASA’s Earth Observatory wrote. (For reference, although not all of this power will directly affect China’s capital, roughly 22 million people live in Beijing; that’s more than two and a half times the population of New York City.)

The two Landsat satellite images below show part of the solar eclipse between 2017 and 2024. Use the slider tool to highlight the changes. (For an indication of size and scale, the images below are 10 kilometers, or 6.2 miles, across.)

And the solar complex is still growing. It will be 250 miles long and 3 miles wide by 2030, according to NASA.

Although China’s energy mix is ​​still dominated by fossil fuels – coal, oil, and gas will account for 87 percent of the energy supply as of 2022 – the nation clearly sees the importance in expanding renewable energy.

“As of June 2024, China led the world in solar farm power consumption with 386,875 megawatts, representing about 51 percent of the global total, according to the Global Energy Monitor’s Global Solar Power Tracker,” explained NASA. “The United States ranks second with 79,364 megawatts (11 percent), followed by India with 53,114 megawatts (7 percent).”

Energy experts say that solar energy, like wind, is an important part of electricity, as it is renewable and has been shown to reduce energy costs. Fossil fuels, of course, still play an important role in the energy mix of many states today.

But the economics of solar are clear there. The evidence, via American satellites, is in the Kubuqi desert.