Gonghe County, Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, northwest China - Recent (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
1. Aerial shots of China's first clean energy project combining photovoltaic power generation, solar thermal storage, electric-heat conversion
2. SOUNDBITE (Chinese) Song Qipeng, head, Gonghe solar thermal power project, Power Construction Corporation of China (POWERCHINA) northwest branch (ending with shot 3):
"After being put into operation, the project is expected to generate an average of 2.2 billion kilowatt hours of on-grid electricity annually. It can help save about 690,000 tonnes of standard coal and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 2.07 million tonnes per year. From developing solar energy resources to storing energy and releasing it on demand, the Gonghe project provides engineering practice for large-scale new energy development and coordinated operation with the power grid."
3. Aerial shots of clean energy project combining photovoltaic power generation, solar thermal storage, electric-heat conversion

China's first one million-kilowatt-grade clean energy project combining photovoltaic power generation, solar thermal storage and electric-heat conversion has been successfully connected to the power grid in Gonghe County, northwest China's Qinghai Province, according to Power Construction Corporation of China (POWERCHINA) on Thursday.

Located in Gonghe County, Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, the project has a total installed capacity of one million kilowatts, consisting of a 900,000-kilowatt photovoltaic station and a 100,000-kilowatt molten-salt tower-like solar thermal power station.

The solar thermal power station has a mirror field of 10,310 heliostats with a total collecting area of about 500,000 square meters. The concentrated sunlight heats molten salt, which stores thermal energy. The stored heat is then used to produce steam and drive a turbine generator.

The project also properly integrates photovoltaic power and solar thermal. Surplus electricity from the nearby photovoltaic plant can be converted into heat and stored in molten-salt tanks, which allows the two solar power generation systems to work together so that sunlight collected during day time can continue to generate power at night.

"After being put into operation, the project is expected to generate an average of 2.2 billion kilowatt hours of on-grid electricity annually. It can help save about 690,000 tonnes of standard coal and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 2.07 million tonnes per year. From developing solar energy resources to storing energy and releasing it on demand, the Gonghe project provides engineering practice for large-scale new energy development and coordinated operation with the power grid," said Song Qipeng, head of the Gonghe solar thermal power project of POWERCHINA's northwest branch.