China Starts First Gigawatt-Sized Offshore Solar Power Project

(Bloomberg) -- China started generating power from its first gigawatt-level offshore solar project in the eastern province of Shandong.

The massive open-sea photovoltaic plant made its first connection to the grid on Wednesday, according to its developer, a unit of China Energy Investment Corp. The project, about 8 kilometers (5 miles) off the coast of Dongying city, has a total installed capacity of 1 gigawatt.

China, the world’s biggest emitter of climate warming gases, is also leading in deploying renewable energy, with more than 700 gigawatts of solar capacity as of this year, ahead of the US and India.

Several provinces and cities including Shandong, Jiangsu and Shanghai have planned offshore solar capacity, which would help land-constrained areas to develop renewable energy sources. Shandong, an industrial hub south of Beijing, plans to add more than 11 gigawatts of offshore solar by 2025, with an ultimate aim of building 42 gigawatts of capacity.

The project off Dongying is expected to generate almost 1.8 billion kilowatt hours of power a year after completion, and is estimated to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 1.3 million tons annually, according to the company.

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