Solar-powered sheep

The summer sunlight lingers long into the evening on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Sonam Drolma, a 31-year-old Tibetan herdswoman from Shangtamai village, Chabucha township, Gonghe county, negotiates a motorcycle through the gaps among a sea of dark blue photovoltaic panels, driving her sheep back to the circle for water, in the Talatan Photovoltaic Industry Park in Gonghe county, Hainan Tibetan autonomous prefecture, Northwest China's Qinghai province.

Herding sheep among photovoltaic panels is an unintentional positive outcome for the herdsmen. In 2012, the prefecture government began to install China's first 10 million kilowatt-class solar power generation base in Talatan (Tala sand land). Ten years later, the photovoltaic park there covers an area of 609 square kilometers, which is close to the land area of Singapore. With the installed 8,430 megawatts, the park tops the chart with the largest photovoltaic power generation capacity in the world.