GSES and NESC colleagues.

On January 4, 2015, representatives from Global Sustainable Energy Solutions (GSES) Pty Ltd visited Nanjing, China, to meet with China’s State Grid National Energy Solar Centre (NESC). GSES’s Geoff Stapleton and Chris Martell visited two of NESC’s state-of-the-art testing facilities, which included a fixed rooftop PV array, a roof-mounted tracking system, a concentrator array and a substantial central inverter testing centre. NESC test centres have been working in cooperation with international testing agencies, such as UL, TUV Rhineland, Fraunhofer, VDE, NREL and others. NESC hopes to expand on these facilities to incorporate a systems training framework in the future.

Later in the week, GSES travelled with NESC representatives to Xining, the capital of Qinghai province in western China. GSES inspected a 50 MW thin-film PV plant and 100 MW crystalline-PV plant, both of which formed part of the much larger Gonghe Industrial Park, consisting of approximately 3 GW of solar power. NESC is interested in developing the State Grid’s operation and maintenance capabilities for its growing portfolio of utility-scale solar plants.

Chris and Geoff at the 100 MW Solar Farm in Gonghe Industrial Park.

Solar as far as the eye can see: perfect!