CGN Breaks Ground on World's Largest Solar Thermal Power Station in Qinghai

China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN) has officially begun construction of the Golmud 350MW concentrated solar power (CSP) demonstration project in Qinghai Province — the world's largest single-unit CSP station by both thermal storage capacity and mirror field area. Located in the Wutumeiren Solar and Thermal Industrial Park in Golmud, the project features a combined tower-and-trough technology approach with a total mirror field area of 3.7 million square meters — equivalent to 518 standard football fields. The configuration includes three tower-type mirror fields of 1.1 million square meters each and one trough-type field of 400,000 square meters. Equipped with 15 hours of large-capacity molten salt thermal storage (11,747 MWh), the station can deliver stable, dispatchable power and is expected to generate approximately 1 billion kWh annually. A key technological highlight is the commercial deployment of CGN's domestically developed 8.6-meter aperture molten salt trough collector — the world's largest opening. Verified in April at CGN's Delingha test base, the system achieves a concentration ratio of 107.5 times and stable operation from 290°C inlet to 550°C outlet, with a 260°C temperature differential that is 2.6 times that of traditional thermal oil systems. All core components — including collector supports, flexible connectors, local controllers, and surface-shape measurement devices — were developed through CGN-led collaboration with domestic industry partners, achieving 100% self-reliance. Unlike photovoltaic solar, CSP offers inherent advantages: integrated thermal storage enables stable power output regardless of weather conditions, provides grid frequency regulation and peak-shaving capabilities, and can be combined with conventional thermal plants for hybrid generation. China's CSP sector has seen renewed policy support after years of slow growth. The National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration jointly released guidelines in December 2025 targeting 15 GW of installed CSP capacity by 2030, with levelized costs competitive with coal power. Per-unit construction costs have dropped from approximately 30,000 RMB/kW a decade ago to around 15,000 RMB/kW, with electricity costs falling to approximately 0.6 RMB/kWh. CGN has been a pioneer in China's CSP sector since 2011, having previously built the Delingha 50MW demonstration project, the Delingha 1GW CSP-storage hybrid project, and the Tibet Wumatang 50MW project — the world's highest-altitude trough-type CSP station.