The green desert entrepreneur
- By Zhou Lin
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E-mail China Today, September 6, 2015
The transformation
Desertification control, what Wang calls "green land," is Elion's main business. Another priority is developing green energy.
In the hinterlands of the Kubuqi Desert, the group's 100 Megawatts-peak photovoltaic generation project has entered the main grid. It has a generating capacity of 650,000 kilowatt-hours and desertification control over 300 hectares. Under large photovoltaic panels, grass grows abundantly thanks to the moderate temperature and low evaporation rate. Flocks of sheep gather under the panels to graze, a reversal of the most common image people have of a desert.
"This integrates desertification control, seeding, breeding and electricity generation," Wang said. Every square meter of photovoltaic panel controls about six sq m of desert, which provides local employment in an integrated industrial chain of green energy, he added. After the completion of a new 1,000 Megawatts-peak photovoltaic generation farm, the annual energy output is expected to reach 1.5 billion kilowatt-hours, which will control 3,000 hectares of desert and benefit the lives of 10,000 people.
Solar thermal energy ranks second in Wang's green energy plan. "Solar thermal energy has been around for more than 40 years, but the market in China is still small," he said. Kubuqi, Gansu and Hebei provinces will be included in Elion's plans to implement the project.
Another part of the green energy plan is haze control. The company owns patented technology on the utilization of clean coal. By introducing aviation eddy technology, Elion achieved the efficient pulverization of processed fine coal. With its low coal consumption and emission, as well as high-heat availability and optimal performance, the technology has already been applied in places such as Tianjin, and Hebei and Shandong provinces.
Elion's transformation actually started in 2011, said Wang. That year they moved the management headquarters to Beijing, promoting the company's transformation based on the capital's superior talent, information, technology and finance.
Last March, Elion launched the Green Silk Road Private Equity Fund, the world's first private equity on improving the ecological environment in the Silk Road Economic Belt and developing solar energy. With an expected funding of RMB 500 million, the equity fund aims to afforest desert along the Silk Road Economic Belt through investments in ecological energy industries. Wang calls this "green financing."
During the Desert Forum in July, Elion signed contracts with Huawei Technologies and the CP Group respectively, expecting to apply Internet technologies to the group's green initiatives. Green land, green energy, green finance and the Internet is another step in the company's present-day innovation.
