From a high vantage point, Dadong Tailings Pond in Hetai Town, Gaoyao District looks as if it is covered with a deep blue armor. Tens of thousands of photovoltaic panels spread along the slopes, setting off against the surrounding green plants, forming a harmonious picture of the integrated regeneration of industrial relics and natural ecology.
Once a tailings accumulation site of Hetai Gold Mine, this place has been transformed into Zhaoqing’s first tailings pond photovoltaic project more than a decade after its closure, converting solar energy into green electricity and turning sunlight into “gold”.
“A few years ago, this was a wasteland covered with slag and overgrown with weeds taller than people,” said Zhou Xingyu, senior supervisor of the Thermal Power Planning and Development Department of Guangdong Datang International Zhaoqing Thermal Power Co., Ltd. Driven by the Hetai Town Government, Datang Zhaoqing cleverly utilized this abandoned land to build a modern photovoltaic power generation project, which not only realized intensive and composite utilization of land resources, but also blazed a new green development path of “photovoltaic power generation + ecological restoration”.
A relevant person in charge of Hetai Town said that the Datang Hetai Photovoltaic Project is in precise alignment with the town’s development needs of revitalizing idle mining areas and promoting composite land use. “The town government has set up a special service team to follow up on the whole process of project warehousing, land approval and other links, providing solid guarantee for the smooth implementation of the project.”
Turning the blueprint into reality was not without challenges. The complex terrain, soft foundation and high drainage and flood control standards of the tailings pond posed severe challenges to the project construction.
“This is the first time we have built a photovoltaic project on a tailings pond,” Zhou Xingyu admitted. Faced with the special geological conditions, the project team customized technical solutions: using rivets to fix components on slopes, laying floating photovoltaic arrays in silt areas, and erecting flexible supports in areas inaccessible to personnel. “Through comprehensive measures, we have maximized the installed capacity on limited land, laying a foundation for the long-term stable operation of the power station.”
In October 2023, the Datang Hetai Photovoltaic Project was successfully completed and put into operation.
To improve the efficiency of the power station, Datang Zhaoqing implemented an intelligent operation and maintenance mode. “We have widely applied drone intelligent inspection to accurately identify problems such as hot spots and shading, greatly improving efficiency and safety,” introduced Xiao Xin, senior supervisor of electrical engineering in the Power Generation Department of Datang Zhaoqing. By optimizing the operation mode of station transformers, the project has effectively reduced the plant power consumption rate. A series of lean management measures have turned the once barren land into a source of tangible power generation benefits, helping the project complete its annual power generation task 65 days ahead of schedule.
Safety and environmental protection have always been the cornerstone of the project construction. The power station has not only established a sound emergency plan for extreme weather and a normalized hidden danger investigation mechanism, but also realized ecological functions such as windbreak, soil fixation and dust suppression through the three-dimensional mode of “power generation on panels and restoration under panels”, creating space for the natural ecological restoration of the reservoir area.
Preliminary estimates show that the Datang Hetai Photovoltaic Project can transmit more than 24 million kilowatt-hours of clean electricity to the power grid this year, equivalent to saving 2,949 tons of standard coal and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 8,600 tons, with an output value of about 8 million yuan. This once dormant land is being awakened by sunlight, writing a new chapter of “turning slag into gold and thriving towards green development”.