The screenshot of China Media Group's report about China's highest altitude wind farm located in Comai county, Northwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region

China's highest altitude wind farm located in Comai county, Northwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region was linked to the power grid on Thursday, representing a breakthrough in China's high-altitude wind turbine construction technique. 

Built by China Three Gorges Corporation (CTG), the wind field installation is located at the ultra-high altitude of over 5,000 meters above sea level in Xizang. Each wind turbine has the power generation capacity of 3.6 megawatts, making the total capacity of the field hit 72.6 megawatts, the largest wind turbine field in an ultra-high altitude area in China. 

Representative from the installation, Wang Liang, said they applied special-designed wind turbines which can resist extreme conditions common in high altitude areas and are 90 meters in height, 160 meters in diameters, and fabricated using unique materials.

The field is Xizang's first high-altitude example wind turbine project as well as the first wind turbine field linked to Xizang's provincial power grid. At present, five wind turbines have been put into service. After all the wind turbines being operated, the annual generated electricity will surpass 200 million kilowatt-hours, which can save over 60,000 tons of standard coal consumption, nearly 173,000 tons of CO2 emission and 20 tons of SO2 emission, according to CTG.

The regional development and reform commission of Xizang committed to deploying 191 key construction projects in the autonomous region in 2023, covering sectors which include infrastructure, special industry development, ecological protection, border security and quality of life improvement backed with 143 billion yuan of investment, local media outlet the Xizang Daily reported on March 26.

A planned investment of 54.7 billion yuan will be used for the Linzhi-Ya'an section of the Sichuan-Xizang railway route, refurbishment of Lhasa Kongga International Airport and other major infrastructure projects.

Xizang government revealed the autonomous region's half year GDP in 2023 stood at 106.96 billion yuan ($14.9 billion), increasing by 8.4 percent year-on-year. 

Global Times