(Reuters) – China will accelerate the construction of large scale solar energy plants and standardise the planning and development of land for solar projects, the natural resources ministry said on Tuesday.
New or expanded solar developments should not be built on farmland, grasslands or protected forest lands, the ministry said in a statement.
The rapid growth of China’s solar sector has brought it into competition with other industries, particularly agriculture, for land use.
The ministry statement encouraged the development of solar facilities in desert regions such as Inner Mongolia’s Gobi.
Last year, the government announced plans to build 450 gigawatts (GW) of solar and wind power generation capacity on the Gobi and in other sparsely populated desert regions.
(Reporting by Andrew Hayley; editing by Louise Heavens and Jason Neely)
