Photovoltaic panels are widely used in Haining, a county-level city of Jiaxing, Zhejiang province. [Photo/WeChat account: hainingfabu]

The 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) was held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, from Nov 30 to Dec 12. Haining, a county-level city of Jiaxing, Zhejiang provice, was invited to give a speech at the conference as a pioneer city in photovoltaic (PV) energy.

COP28 is the largest and most important annual meeting on climate issues, with 198 parties participating. It revolved around discussions on how to limit and adapt to climate change.

Zhang Yan, deputy director of the Haining development and reform bureau, represented Haining at the conference, sharing Haining's impressive achievements in PV energy.

Haining's per capita PV capacity is 1.39 kilowatts. Huangwan, a town in Haining, is the first integrated demonstration zone for power generation, power grids, loads, and energy storage in the country and has a per capita PV capacity of 15.43 kW, 25 times that of Zhejiang province as a whole.

PV installed capacity exceeded 1 million kW and power generation exceeded 1.1 billion kilowatt-hours, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 1.1 million metric tons.

In addition, Haining has implemented a variety of PV applications in all aspects of life.

China (Haining) Leather City is home to the first distributed PV project in the country, which has been running for more than 10 years and has a cumulative power generation of 38.48 million kWh.

In rural areas of Haining, PV power generation in agriculture helps reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 9,570 tons per year.

By the end of the 14th Five-Year Plan, Haining's PV capacity is expected to exceed 1.8 million kW, per capita PV is expected to reach 2.52 kW, and carbon dioxide emissions are expected to be reduced by 2 million tons.