Huawei will provide 100 MW of solar inverters for the construction of a solar power plant in China’s Ningxia Province, which located in the northern central part of the country and has a population of about 6 million. The exact location is at or near an old coal mine.

“Because the PV power plant is built on a desert in a harsh environment, reliability is of great concern during solution design and product selection.  The power plant is simple, standardized, and can withstand a harsh environment with dust, salt mist, high temperature, high humidity, and high altitude,” said a project representative.

Shizuishan City is the site of the solar power plant project. This city is in the most northern part of the province. Ningxia is dry and desert-like but irrigation has supported a fairly extensive agricultural industry. Coal mining infrastructure is also well developed, but the region has been trying to transition away from coal to have more solar power.

Air pollution contributes to at least 470,000 premature deaths per year in China. A number of years ago, Shizuishan City was referenced in a long news article about how much damage China’s industrial explosion is causing, in part due to extensive air pollution, “Along the Huang (Yellow) River in the city of Shizuishan, in the Ningxia region adjacent to Inner Mongolia, the extent of the pollution becomes rather obvious. Swaths of gray-black cloud blot out the sun to make the perfect setting for a Hollywood film about the end of the world. Two power plants belch ash into an artificial lake separated from the nearby river only by a thin dam. The wind blows the ash upward to start it on its journey around the globe.”

Huawei has about 170,000 employees and it says 45% of them are involved in research and development. The company is also working to support low-carbon economic growth. China certainly needs such efforts, because it has become a global leader in air pollution due to the constant burning of massive amounts of coal.