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Discover the world's largest solar power plant in China, located in Xinjiang. Discover how this renewable energy source exposes social and labor problems, including the repression of Uyghurs.
China has repeatedly demonstrated, over the last two years, two of its great obsessions: megaconstructions 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, the country has just shown its strength in both. A few days ago, a state-owned company connected what is considered the world's largest solar farm, a sprawling 3,5 gigawatt installation that spans more than 13.300 hectares and could supply 2-3 million inhabitants.
The farm, however, has an effect less desired by Beijing: drawing attention to the repression of the Uighur people in Xinjiang, denounced for years by international organizations, and its repercussions on the renewable energy sector itself.
An XXL solar power 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, a facility that came into operation last week. The 3,5 GW plant extends over 32.947 acres, equivalent to 13.333 hectares, according to data released by Reuters. To install it, technicians chose the northwest of the country, in the autonomous region of Xinjiang. To be more precise, they settled in a desert area of Urumqi, their capital.
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Energy for a country
Those responsible calculate that the installation will be capable of generating around 6.090 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, enough to supply Papua New Guinea with energy for 12 months, according to Reuters calculations. Other estimates indicate that its capacity could almost cover the entire electricity demand of the entire state of Brazil. Pará with energy.
Its power will further reinforce China's strength in renewable energy generation, which has already experienced a significant increase in 2023. Data released in January by the National Energy Agency show that, in 2023, the solar electricity generation capacity installed around across the country increased by 55,2%.
Expanding the Chinese footprint
The fact is that China already had two of the largest solar installations in the world: Ningxia Tennggeli, from the 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 energy, which includes megabases in low-population areas, from where the energy is sent to urban hubs.
It matters what, how much... and where
The new solar farm is located in a desert area of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, which features prominently on China's solar and wind energy map. Because of your weight. And also because of the controversy that accompanies it. In the region, important infrastructure dedicated to renewable energy, such as Urumqi Dabancheng, and record infrastructure were promoted, but Xinjiang is also in the international spotlight due to the repression that, according to different international organizations, the Uighurs suffered there.
A controversy affecting the energy sector
In 2021, Amnesty International (AI) spoke of the “mass incarceration, torture and systematic persecution” of Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, a campaign organized by the State and which constitutes, in its opinion, “crimes against humanity”. In 2022, the UN itself issued a report on Xinjiang warning of “serious human rights violations” against the Uyghurs and other Muslim communities.
What happened in Xinjiang would directly affect the renewable energy sector. In 2021, William Alan Reinsch and Seán Arrieta-Kenna pointed out at CSIS that a large part of solar panel manufacturing depends on components made precisely in Xinjiang, which puts the focus on the conditions offered to workers in that region. His article was 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 using polysilicon components, which are produced using an industrial oven process 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 world's five biggest factories.”
After remembering the region's weight in the sector, the article by Reinsch and Arrieta-Kenna highlights that, between 2010 and 2020, China's footprint in global polysilicon production grew exponentially, from 26% to 82%, while the USA lost ground in same speed. “According to Jenny Chase of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, 'nearly all silicon-based solar modules (at least 95% of the market) are likely to contain some silicon from Xinjiang.'”
The link with Xinjiang
Earlier the same year, The New York Times reported on a study by consultancy Horizon Advisory that suggested links between Xinjiang's growing photovoltaic sector and “a broad assigned labor program in China that includes methods that conform to documented patterns of forced labor ”. The study cites important companies in the sector and, according to the New York newspaper, presents “evidence” of the use of forced labor, employees displaced with government support from points in Xinjiang and even the application of “military-style” training.
Ample and growing evidence
They are not the only ones. Sheffield Hallam University has 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 energy is a “particularly vulnerable” industry to end up linked to this practice because polysilicon manufacturers in the region represent 45% of the global supply of the solar-quality material and warn of employment programs that are developing in “an environment of unprecedented coercion” and under “constant threat”.
the agenda
Concerns about the impact of this type of work continue to hang 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 or electric car industry is “very exposed” to the risks. of forced labor due to Xinjiang's important role in the supply chain due to solar-grade polysilicon and lithium, nickel and graphite used in lithium-ion batteries for vehicles. From within the sector, there are already voices, such as Skyline International, calling for greater transparency throughout the supply chain.
Image | PowerChina
