Tengger Desert Solar Park

Tengger Desert Solar Park is a huge solar power plant on the edge of the Tengger Desert, near the city of Zhongwei in Ningxia, China. It covers about 43 square kilometres and has a peak power capacity of 1,547 megawatts, or about 1.5 gigawatts.

In 2018 it was the solar park with the largest peak power in the world, and it ranked as the sixth-largest photovoltaic plant in December 2021. Its rows of panels turn desert sunlight directly into electricity. The park has been called the 'Great Wall of Solar', because it stretches across the desert like a long, glittering wall.

How it works

The plant is a photovoltaic station, which means its panels turn sunlight straight into electricity without using heat or steam. A desert is a good place for this because it has lots of sun and plenty of empty land. According to the globe card, the Yellow River runs nearby, and checkerboards of straw barriers protect the railway from the sand. Zhongwei is also where those straw-checkerboard methods were used to hold back the desert.

Records and rankings

Rankings of solar plants change quickly, because new parks keep being built. In 2018, Tengger's 1,547 megawatts was the highest peak power of any solar park, and by December 2021 it was sixth largest. Even so it remains one of the biggest in the world. China has built many large solar parks in sunny, thinly populated regions, and the Tengger plant is one of the best known.

On the globe

The model shows rows of solar panels spread across sand at the edge of the desert. Look for the grid of panels.