Renewable energy power plant and storage developer, owner, and operator Linyang Energy has signed a cooperation agreement with Ant Digital, Alibaba’s digital technology platform. According to the agreement, the 2 parties will collaborate in advancing applications of AI + Blockchain in the energy sector. The collaboration aims to deploy autonomous intelligent agents for power plants, build cross-regional virtual power plant platforms, and enable blockchain-based registration and trading of PV and storage assets. This joint effort is expected to accelerate the digital transformation of the energy industry and support the creation of a smart energy ecosystem.
By June 2025, Linyang Energy had signed operation and maintenance contracts for over 20 GW of power plants, delivered and connected more than 5 GWh of storage systems. Ant Digital, leveraging its expertise in AI and blockchain, is monitoring about 16 million renewable energy devices.
In May this year, Linyang Energy’s ‘Digital Twin-Based Intelligent TOPCon Cell Factory’ was recognized as an Advanced Smart Factory of Jiangsu Province for 2025 (see China Solar PV News Snippets).
China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has announced the 2025 list of Excellence-Level Smart Factory projects, naming 274 enterprises. It is a high-level certification established to drive digital transformation and intelligent upgrades in the country’s manufacturing sector, focusing on digitalization, networked collaboration, and smart manufacturing, setting benchmarks for advanced development nationwide.
Several solar manufacturers are part of the list, including Tongwei’s high-efficiency crystalline silicon collaborative smart factory in Sichuan, JA Solar’s multi-system coordinated PV module smart factory in Shanghai, LONGi’s flexible monocrystalline PV module smart factory in Jiangsu, Astronergy’s high-efficiency solar cell and module smart factory in Zhejiang, and DQ Energy’s intelligent complete power equipment factory in Jiangsu.
Chinese energy storage manufacturer Deye has obtained multiple international safety certifications for its residential and commercial energy storage products. The AI-W5.1-B residential ESS received UL 9540A certification from Intertek. The GE-FH60/GE and GE-FL60 C&I ESS were awarded both UL 9540A and NFPA 69 certifications by the Canadian Standards Association (CSA). The RW-F10.2-B residential ESS received UL 9540A, UL 9540, and UL 1973 certifications from TÜV Rheinland.
Karamay City in Xinjiang has launched investment invitations for 2 manufacturing facilities: a 10 GW solar cell plant and an 8 GW module plant, both located in the Wuerhe Industrial Park. According to the local commerce bureau, the former will involve an estimated investment of RMB 5 billion ($697 million) and will be built in 2 phases to establish a 10 GW high-efficiency cell base. Local wafer producer JP Solar will supply wafers for this cell facility. The module plant, with an expected investment of RMB 2 billion ($279 million), will utilize cells from the above facility.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China’s large industrial enterprises, defined as those with annual core revenues of RMB 20 million ($2.8 million) or more, produced 69.86 GW of solar cells in August 2025, up 16.8% year-over-year (YoY) and slightly higher than July’s 66.38 GW (see China Solar PV News Snippets). For the 8-month period till August 2025, cumulative solar cell output reached 547.32 GW, also representing a growth of 16.8% YoY.
During the same period, total power generation by large industrial enterprises was up 1.5% YoY to 6,419.3 billion kWh. Solar power generation accounted for 386.7 billion kWh (+23.4% YoY) of this total, while wind power amounted to 696.6 billion kWh (+11.6% YoY).
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