China’s solar program improves air 

China is experiencing pollution, unlike any other country. The most populous nation on earth, China is also the country that spews greenhouse gases into the atmosphere at an alarming rate. The only solution is solar power. But how do solar panels hold the key to China’s future?

A closer look at solar panels

The squares of silicon are hardly thicker than sheets of paper, each about six inches by six, with narrow stripes of silver. They enter the factory by the thousands, stacked in cardboard boxes, and within hours, they’ll be ready to depart again.
The squares are solar cells, and at this plant, two hours’ drive from Shanghai, workers in bright blue uniforms and white lab coats operate the machines that assemble them, row by row, into more familiar-looking panels, ready to be installed on rooftops or in large arrays and begin turning sunlight into electricity.
Chinese manufacturing has changed the economic realities of renewable power around the world, making solar generation cost-competitive with electricity from fossil fuels like natural gas and coal. The Chinese are motivated in part by a desire to ease the horrific air pollution that kills an estimated 1.1 million of its people each year.

China gets serious about reducing pollution through solar

“The installation rates are absolutely mind-blowing,” says Lauri Myllyvirta, an energy and air pollution expert at Greenpeace in Beijing. China added 35 gigawatts of new solar generation in 2016 alone. “That’s almost equal to Germany’s total capacity, just in one year,” Myllyvirta says. Every hour, China constructs another wind turbine and installs enough solar panels to cover a soccer field, according to estimates from the environmental group Greenpeace.

The Chinese must abandon coal

Ignoring their air quality crisis has resulted from decades of breakneck industrialization. China’s leaders have finally begun trying to solve their massive pollution crisis. Because coal is the source of an estimated 40 percent of the most dangerous pollution particles in the country’s air, finding alternatives to it has become a nationwide priority. China aims to get 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2030, and it recently announced it would spend $360 billion on the plan in just the next three years. The entire world must follow China’s lead if we are to ameliorate the most devastating causes of climate change. Solar power is the clear solution.

There has never been a better time to install a solar energy system!

If you want to move into the future and join the solar revolution, or if you want to find out what solar panels are right for you, go to HahaSmart.com and try our price checker tool. You can see how much a system will cost, and how much you can save over the next 20 years. 

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