Datong city administration in China’s Shanxi province is planning to set up a pilot solar and storage power project under its Pilot Action Plan with 200 MW PV and 6 MW storage capacity. Local media reports say the project will be developed in Tuofeng Township in Hunyuan County.

The project will be connected to the grid and will be built for an estimated RMB 920 million ($130 million) investment. It is scheduled to enter construction in April 2020.

It is being planned to be developed under Phase-II of China’s Renewable Energy Scaling-Up Project (CRESP). Th pilot demonstration project is a joint work of the Chinese government, the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility (GEF). Through this CRESP, the stakeholders aim to support the ambitious scale-up of renewable energy in China with a focus on efficiency improvement and reduction of incremental costs.

As per the World Bank, Phase-I of the CRESP looked at developing and implementing legal and regulatory framework to create and gradually increase the share of renewable energy-based electricity generation in 4 pilot provinces of China with focused technologies being wind power, hydropower and biomass. Under Phase-II, the support is extended to about 10 provinces and under Phase-III, the support will be expanded to less-developed provinces of China.

On completion, the Datong located CRESP solar & storage facility is targeted to effectively promote full integration of energy storage and green energy, to improve the stability of the power system and promote the concept in a region where thermal power plants abound currently.

In January 2020, Shanxi was reported to have closed 18 coal mines in 2019 to seek greener growth.