The "Photovoltaic Great Wall" desertification control belt in Ordos' Kubuqi Desert won worldwide praise at the 16th Conference of the Parties (COP16) to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), which is taking place from Dec 2 to 13 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Lu Qi, director of the Three-North Shelterbelt Forest Program Research Institute, and He Jijiang, executive deputy director of the Center for Energy Transition and Social Development at Tsinghua University, along with other distinguished experts and scholars, presented the contributions of the "Photovoltaic Great Wall" desertification control belt. 

He Jijiang remarked that the Kubuqi Desert "Photovoltaic Great Wall" desertification control belt aligns closely with multiple aspects of the United Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and will garner significant international attention.

The "Photovoltaic Great Wall" in the Kubuqi Desert. [Photo/WeChat account of Nuan news]

Ordos has harnessed the Kubuqi Desert's land and solar energy resources to integrate sand control with new energy development. This "Photovoltaic Great Wall" for sand control has been planned and constructed along the northern edge of the Kubuqi Desert and south of the Yellow River. It spans 400 kilometers, has an average width of 5 km, and has an installed capacity of 100 million kilowatts.

Utilizing the model of generating green electricity on solar panels and cultivating plants under the panels, this initiative annually reduces standard coal consumption by over 60 million metric tons, carbon dioxide emissions by more than 170 million tons, and conserves 250 million tons of water, thereby achieving the dual goals of sand control and ecological restoration.

By 2030, the Kubuqi Desert is expected to comprehensively manage 12 million mu (800,000 hectares) of desert land by adopting an ecological restoration model combined with "photovoltaic + sand control".