Since the second half of 2010, a serious draught began to spread in Henan Province, Shandong Province, and other northern regions. The rivers and lakes dried up, crops withered, in some areas, the local people even have difficulty of getting drinking water and the draught is stretching to more places.
The central government and the State Council paid close attention to the severe draught. During the Spring Festival, Premiere Wen Jiabao went on an inspection tour to the drought-hit central Henan Province. When he holds a withering wheat seedling, he was anxious about the severity of the draught.
The severe draught also grabs the attention of the China Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Group leaders. As the leading enterprise in China’s new energy industry, how to support the agriculture with the advanced science and technology, and how to help the draught-hit farmers are their first concerns. The leaders of China Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Group have called a meeting to discuss the issues of fighting against draught.
When they knew that Fangcheng County of Henan Province, the severest draught-hit area actually boasts abundant ground water resources, and a few years ago this county has drilled a well per acre plowland with the loan from the World Bank. But due to lack of emergency eclectic power source, the farmers could do nothing with the abundant ground water resources. Knowing this, the collaborating institution of China Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Group—Inner Mongolia HUAZE New Energy Development Co., Ltd puts forward the proposal of using solar power generation to fetch water to fight against the draught. As the leading player in the solar power utilization, China Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Group immediately sent staff to Fangcheng County to investigate the particular case, and worked together with local government, and Inner Mongolia HUAZE New Energy Development Co., Ltd to make a fetching water plan and delivery plan with he use of solar power.
Draught waits no man! There was not any rainfall in 138 days! The earlier the water was brought up from underground to irrigate the crops, the bigger is the possibility of saving the crops. The longer the crops were thirsty, the wider the crops disaster area. While most of the Chinese were celebrating their Chinese New Year, the staff from China Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Group were working hard in Zhaohe Village of Fangcheng County where over 10,000 acres of farmland was dried up. They worked overtime to install the devices according to the installment plan. Very soon, a small size solar power station with capacity of 7 KW was set up. After careful debugging, on the ninth of January according to lunar year, when the sun rose, clear water from the well was brought up to the thirsty farmland, the villagers of Zhaohe village all clapped their hands. The water brought from well through the use of solar power energy has saved the drops, without using oil and electricity; it’s both clean and environment-friendly. According to historical records, it was the first time that solar power anti-draught system was used to fight against draught. This system consisted of solar array and bring-up-water controller, and the solar array was composed of 64 solar panels, which takes up 77 square meters, forming a 45 degree angle with the water level to attract solar energy to produce high voltage direct current, and the direct current was shifted to alternating current through bring-up-water controller, the total power reaching 7680 W to push the pump to fetch water.
The life span of this solar power anti-draught system is 25 years, which can greatly save electricity and gasoline. When there is draught, we can use the power to fetch water to combat draught, when the draught is gone, the generated solar power energy can be gathered into the state grid. In this way, the clean solar energy is fully utilized.
At present, we are summing up this successful practice of using solar power anti-draught system. China Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Group is making efforts to optimize solutions and coordinate various resources to install more solar power anti-draught stations in Fangcheng County to solve the irrigation problems of over 10,000 acre farmland. And we are considering merging various solar power anti-draught stations to provide the local farmers with green power, and eventually solve the local problem of power shortage. At the same time, we are taking into account combining solar energy generation with state emergency and supporting agriculture with science and technology. Let the green power be of service to more Chinese farmers.