China's Wind Valley: Dabancheng in Xinjiang

The Dabancheng District of Urumqi, Xinjiang, gained its reputation for its beautiful girls and sweet watermelons through the well-known folk song "The Maiden of Dabancheng." Now, it has earned a new name: China's Wind Valley.

Drivers traveling along the Dabancheng section of the Liangyungang to Horgos Highway are often surprised to see a vast "white forest" of wind turbines and feel their vehicles sway in the strong crosswinds.

Dabancheng District is a long strip of land stretching wide from east to west, and narrow from north to south. Surrounded by mountains to the north, south and east, winds roar in from the west, resulting in the Venturi effect.

Covering over 1,500 square kilometers, the Dabancheng zone experiences 214 days of winds reaching force 6 or higher and 149 days of winds reaching level 8 or higher annually. After more than 40 years of constructing wind power generation projects, China's Wind Valley can produce around 2.5 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year. This not only meets the Dabancheng District's electricity needs, but also plays a crucial role in China's West-to-East Power Transmission Project.

Xinjiang is rich in wind resources, and Dabancheng is one of its nine key wind zones. By the end of 2024, Xinjiang had cumulatively transmitted 867.6 billion kWh of electricity to the eastern part of China – a third of which was clean energy.