U.S. satellites reveal China's solar dominance

The sun's energy is plentiful. And China is capitalizing.

Images captured by two Earth-observing satellites, operated by the U.S. Geological Survey, revealed a rapid expansion of solar farms in a remote northern Chinese region, the Kubuqi Desert.

"The construction is part of China’s multiyear plan to build a 'solar great wall' designed to generate enough energy to power Beijing," writes NASA's Earth Observatory. (For reference, although all this energy won't directly power the Chinese capital, around 22 million people live in Beijing; that's over two and a half times the population of New York City.)

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The two Landsat satellite images below show a section of the major solar expansion between 2017 and 2024. Use the slider tool to reveal the changes. (For a size and scale reference, the images below are about 10 kilometers, or 6.2 miles, across.)

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Left:December 20, 2017 Credit: USGS / NASA Right:December 8, 2024 Credit: USGS / NASA

And the solar complex is still growing. It will be 250 miles long and 3 miles wide by 2030, according to NASA.

Though China's energy mix is still dominated by fossil fuels — coal, oil, and gas comprised 87 percent of its energy supply as of 2022 — the nation clearly sees value in expanding renewable energy.

"As of June 2024, China led the world in operating solar farm capacity with 386,875 megawatts, representing about 51 percent of the global total, according to Global Energy Monitor’s Global Solar Power Tracker," NASA explained. "The United States ranks second with 79,364 megawatts (11 percent), followed by India with 53,114 megawatts (7 percent)."

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Energy experts say that solar energy, like wind, is an important part of an energy supply, as they're renewable and have been shown to reduce energy costs. Fossil fuels, of course, still play a prominent role in most states' energy mix today.

But the economics of solar are clearly there. The proof, via U.S. satellites, is in the Kubuqi Desert.