Panels put rural homes on energy map

Local authorities said the distributed solar PV system in Lianxing went into operation in 2017, three years after villagers moved into new homes fitted with solar panels. Households in the village now make an average of 8,000 yuan a year from selling solar energy to the grid.

Villagers did not have to pay for the new houses or power generation facilities thanks to a land-use rights transfer project. After their resettlement, the land previously covered by the villagers' old, dilapidated houses was turned into more than 130 hectares of farmland.

All the costs for the new houses and solar panels were covered by the company that invested in a large-scale agricultural development project.

"Villagers didn't pay even a single penny. It was a house-for-house deal, and that's not half bad," the village's Party chief, Li Chou, said.

He said people from nearby rural communities have been impressed by the progress made by Lianxing's residents after seeing the way the distributed solar PV program has resulted in a significant transformation of the village's living environment.

"The village is spotlessly clean. So is every household," Li said.

With vast stretches of desert and wasteland, Inner Mongolia is particularly suitable for large-scale, concentrated solar PV energy development, but the region has also made continued progress in household solar PV installation.

Inner Mongolia's distributed solar power generation capacity increased by 400 megawatts in the first three quarters of last year, the National Energy Administration said. That took the total in the region to over 1.6 GW, with more than a quarter contributed by household panels.

The neighboring province of Gansu has also seen remarkable progress in household solar PV adoption. While some rural residents paid for installation themselves, many others were offered another option — leasing their rooftops to solar energy development companies.

Liang Hongqi, from Dujiahe village in Hezheng county, Gansu, learned about distributed solar PV from the internet in 2017.

After the local grid company told him that preferential prices could lower the cost of installing a solar PV power generation system at his home, and that he could sell the surplus power it generated to the grid, the 59-year-old quickly decided to spend 34,000 yuan to put one on his rooftop.

His six-member family, which usually consumes 120 kilowatt-hours of electricity a month, now enjoys free power supply, Liang said, adding that he has also made 24,500 yuan from sales to the local grid.

The service life of a distributed solar power system is usually 20 to 25 years, and workers from the local grid company inspect his system regularly.

"What I need to do is to occasionally clean the PV panels to ensure that their power generation capability is not disrupted by sand and dust," he said.