The Huadian Tianjin Haijing photovoltaic power station, a "salt-light complementary" project featuring world's largest single capacity, was connected to the power grid in north China's Tianjin Municipality on Saturday.

The operation of the power station with capacity of 1,000 megawatts features a composite industrial model of photovoltaic power generation, water-surface halogen production and underwater aquaculture, while improving the power supply capacity in north China.

Located in the Changlu salt fields, the power station covers an area of about 1,333.3 hectares, equivalent to 1,868 football fields. It can provide 1.5 billion kilowatt-hours of clean electricity every year, which is able to meet the electricity consumption demands of 1.5 million households and reduce about 1.25 million tonnes of carbon dioxide compared with the thermal power required to generate the same amount of electricity.

Photovoltaic panels with larger span

Huadian Tianjin Haijing photovoltaic power station has a 14-meter space between photovoltaic arrays, almost twice the distance of other such stations. The panels are also placed at a precisely-designed slope of 17 degrees, while that of most other photovoltaic power stations is about 30 or 40 degrees. Both of the measures are to minimize the shielding of panels on the water surface which can impact salt production.

Both sides of the photovoltaic panels can generate electricity.

The upper side can directly absorb sunlight for electricity conversion, and the back can absorb the sunlight reflected by the water surface, contributing to an increase in power generation efficiency by 5 to 7 percent.

The project will further promote the transformation of green energy structure in north China, and drive the internal circulation of the regional industrial chain, Yang Fan, who is in charge of the project, told China Media Group.

It also features the integrated application of salt production, power generation and fisheries, said Yang.