"At last we have electricity. Now we can watch TV programs," said Dui Shanbai, imagining a better future.

The Kazak farmer and his family were among more than 600 households of Kazak herdsmen on the pasture, who have become beneficiaries of the government program of "providing electricity for township dwellers" in seven provinces and autonomous regions in the western part of China.

Statistics show that at the end of 2001, there were about 30 million minority ethnic people in the seven provinces and autonomous regions, including Tibet, Sichuan, Qinghai and Xinjiang, lived in darkness at night due to lack of conventional power grid coverage.

In Xinjiang, an ethnic population of 300,000 at 53 townships have since long lived without the coverage of major power grids. They can only use lumber, coal and dried dung as fuels for cooking and warming. The result was devastation of the ecological environment and under-development of regional economies.

To provide more of the ethnic population with electricity, the State Development and Reform Commission has started a program to make use of abundant solar, wind and water resources in the western regions.

On the basis of a range of state-of-the-art technologies, the program involves construction of solar photo-voltaic power stations, wind-driven power stations and small-scale hydropower projects.

Under the program, a 150-kilowatt solar photo-voltaic power station, so far the largest of its kind in China, has been built, at Beitashan Pasture, where Dui Shanbai lives.

Prior to the 120-million-yuan (14.46 million US dollar) project, a 100-kw photo-voltaic power station was launched in Amdo County, Tibet.

Like Dui Shanbai, more than 100,000 Tibetan herdsman are benefiting from the program, as nearly 100 solar photo-voltaic power stations have been built on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

The 60-year-old Tibetan herdsman Goisang says. "In the past we burned butter, but now we fire the Sun."

The Chinese Government has invested about 260 million yuan (31. 33 million US dollars) in the electricity provision program, with 585 solar photo-voltaic and wind-solar power stations and 114 small hydropower projects launched in 699 townships, which suffered lack of coverage of conventional power grids.