At dawn, in the Tengger Desert Desert-Gobi-Wasteland new energy base (Ningxia, northwestern China）, rows of photovoltaic panels begin their daily rotation from east to west, tracking the sun and feeding clean electricity into the grid. The base is one of the country's first 10-million-kilowatt-scale new energy bases in desert areas, the Gobi, and other arid areas. It also serves as a key supporting project for the Ningxia-Hunan ultra-high-voltage direct-current transmission line.
Pointing to a cloud in the sky, Lu Jun, an engineer at the base's equipment maintenance center, said, "In the past, photovoltaic power generation depended on the weather. A single cloud passing over could cut output." Today, tracking mounts automatically adjust their angles according to the sun's position, following the sun like sunflowers to maximize power generation. Annual electricity output is about 10 percent higher than that of panels on fixed mounts, while the base can generate up to 300,000 kilowatt-hours of additional electricity per hour. From "weather-dependent" to "sun-chasing", every technological breakthrough is making green electricity from these sand dunes more stable and abundant.
An aerial view of the Tengger Desert new energy base in Ningxia
Decades ago, on the southeastern edge of the Tengger Desert, the desert was once just 4 to 5 kilometers from Zhongwei, and surrounding villages and farmland were frequently buried by drifting sand. Change began with the perseverance of generations of sand control workers. From straw checkerboard to grass-grid sand barriers, people spent more than half a century "stitching" a green cover onto the desert. By the end of June 2025, as the final rows of brush-like straw checkerboards were firmly anchored in the ground, the sand-fixation belt along the southeastern edge of the Tengger Desert was completed, marking the full completion of the sand-barrier belt within Ningxia. Today, those building this new energy base have taken up the baton, building megawatt-scale photovoltaic oases on land that was once barren.
Driving into the southeastern edge of the Tengger Desert, you will find a gravel road winds through rolling dunes, flanked by dark-blue photovoltaic panels stretching as far as the eye can see. The sand here is fine and highly mobile, making construction extremely difficult. "The deeper we drove the piles, the denser the sand became. If we used too much force, the holes would collapse before the equipment could even be installed," recalled Lin Kai, deputy project manager of Phase I of CHN Energy's Ningxia Tengger Desert New Energy Base. "Through repeated testing, the construction team introduced a pilot-hole drilling machine. We first injected a small amount of water to compact the sand, then drove precast pipe piles through side-guided holes, solving the challenge of pile driving in the desert."
The design of the photovoltaic mounting structures was equally critical. In the core area of Phase I, rows of panels stand in neat arrays, with the piles reaching 3 meters and the clearance exceeding 2 meters. "In the past, photovoltaic panels were only about 40 centimeters above the ground. Wind would swirl underneath and often scour out large cavities," Lin said. "With the new 'big-tree' design, wind can pass through quickly, reducing equipment damage while leaving plenty of room for planting beneath the panels."
Once the photovoltaic panels were raised, the fight against desertification did not end there. After nearly four years of operation, more than 1.2 million plants — including Mongolia wheatgrass plants, Artemisia sphaerocephala, Caragana korshinskii, and other sand-tolerant shrubs — have been planted beneath the panels, raising vegetation coverage from less than 0.5 percent before treatment to more than 20 percent.
"When the land-leveling work for Phase I first began, blowing sand filled the air, and I had to wear two masks," Lin recalled. "Now, when I come to the base for inspections, I often see goitered gazelles, red foxes, ruddy shelducks and other wildlife foraging in the grass beneath the photovoltaic panels."
Not long ago, Tang Ximing, head of the Xijiao Forest Farm in Zhongwei and a legendary figure in the city's sand-control efforts, was invited to the base for an inspection. Crouching down, he pointed to the tender green shoots beneath the panels and said, "If the photovoltaic site is properly maintained, a biological soil crust will form over the next few years, covering the dunes with a 'thin blanket'. That will truly stabilize the drifting sand and turn the dunes into an oasis."
By combining electricity generation above the panels with vegetation restoration below them, Ningxia has carried out photovoltaic-based desertification control across 145,000 mu (96,67 hectares) of the Tengger Desert, generating comprehensive annual economic benefits of 300 million yuan (approximately 41.7 million USD). In June 2025, the Ningxia-Hunan ±800 kV ultra-high-voltage direct-current transmission project officially began transmitting electricity to Hunan at a capacity of 4 million kilowatts. As a key supporting project for the Ningxia-Hunan transmission line, the green electricity generated at the Tengger base now travels thousands of kilometers to power homes across Hunan. From "weather-dependent" to "sun-chasing", this once-barren land, is gradually becoming a new energy oasis.
