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Asian Development Bank

50 climate solutions from cities in the People's Republic of China

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Villages and households in Wuzhong are benefiting from lower energy bills, and receiving payments for surplus generation, thanks to micro solar energy systems designed to bring people out of poverty.

The City of Wuzhong is taking steps to decarbonize the energy supply and reduce poverty by installing rooftop and micro solar energy systems, allowing residents to generate electricity for their own use and make money by selling surplus energy back to the grid. The ‘Solar PV+’ poverty alleviation project aims to build 74 village-level solar photovoltaic (PV) power stations on land, and 10,000 smaller installations on rooftops. The capacity of power stations on land will be 234 megawatt peak (MWp) and with a further 50 MWp on rooftops.

148k
TONS CO2 EMISSION WILL BE ANNUALLY REDUCED BY THE INSTALLED 16 VILLAGE-LEVEL PV POWER STATIONS AND 1,700 DISTRIBUTED ROOFTOP SOLAR SYSTEMS FOR HOUSEHOLDS.

Operation of the village-level solar PV power stations will bring each village CNY200,000 income annually, improving villagers’ living conditions, with the aim of alleviating poverty for the whole Yanchi County by 2018. Each household will get a loan to install the rooftop solar system and, after 8 years, will be generating revenues of CNY2,800 annually. The project is part of the city’s overall plan to alleviate poverty by 2018, to promote the development of energy diversification, and to speed up the replacement of conventional fossil energy.

ADB Climate Solution
284 MWp of solar capacity will be installed as part of the project, with each household earning annual revenues of CNY2,800 (photo by ADB Photo Library).

The Challenge

Wuzhong’s economy is dominated by energy-intense industry and relies on fossil fuels at a great expense to the environment and public health. Several poverty-stricken parts of the city also suffer from regular droughts and resource shortages. This initiative hopes to empower those most vulnerable communities through new sustainable revenue streams.

Co-Benefits

Economic  In addition to reducing expenditure on electricity, each household system will bring annual revenues of CNY2,800, while village-level system will generate revenues of CNY200,000 per year.

Environment  To date, approximately 8,565 tons of SO2 emissions, 4,283 tons of NO2 emissions, and 77,817 tons of dust emissions have been avoided, thanks to the project.

Social  Hundreds of new jobs have been created in installing and maintaining PV systems across the city.