Xinhua News Agency, Urumqi, April 14th, Title: Song of Wind Rising in the West - Experience of Green Development of Xinjiang's "Devil Wind Zone"

Xinhua News Agency reporters Chu Hang, Du Gang, and Zhang Xiaocheng

Near the "East Gate" Hami City, Xinjiang, a Gobi Desert stretching for more than 16,000 square kilometers and is known by the locals as "Thirteen Rooms", the north wind whistled past the black gravel that could not grow in grass. This "Devil Wind Zone" with more than 200 days of strong winds throughout the year, even animals rarely stop, but white "fan forest" grows.

A bird's eye view of the wind farm in the "Thirteen Rooms" area of ​​Hami, Xinjiang. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Zhang Xiaocheng

"When I first came, I couldn't stand firmly on the Gobi Desert. The strong wind wrapped around the sand and hit the exposed skin, causing pain, and I couldn't even open my eyes." Shi Rui, the head of the Thirteen Room Million-KW Wind Farm in China Shipbuilding Group, was born in 1988. His eyes were filled with the unique vicissitudes and perseverance of the Northwest men. This wind power worker who came out of Zhangye, Gansu, and more than 10 team members with an average age of 27 years old are responsible for driving 150 fans and transforming the violent north wind into green electricity that lights up thousands of homes.

220 square kilometers - In this large wind farm, operation and maintenance work is full of challenges. The inspection requires two hours to drive through the Gobi Desert. During the seasons, maintenance personnel must switch between the severe cold of minus 30 degrees Celsius and the high temperature of 50 degrees Celsius. The equipment utilization rate remains above 99.5% all year round, which means that each "big Mac" fan with an average value of more than 10 million yuan has less than 2 days of downtime each year.

Near the wind farm, the giant energy storage compartment of the new energy storage power station built is like a silver cube array. This independent energy storage project with an investment of 1.6 billion yuan can discharge up to 1.2 million kilowatt-hours at a time, which is equivalent to the electricity consumption of a family of three in 800,000 households in a day.

During the day, the scorching sun burns the Gobi desert, the undulating dunes and the huge fan on the dunes are like lurking giant beasts. The wind blew, slashing through the airflow, making waves of howling sounds. The coordinated power generation of wind and storage and the large-scale development of new energy storage systems have built one "window and light treasure" after another in this endless no-man's land.

In the monitoring room of the wind farm, Dong Yu, the post-90s chief, was keeping a close eye on important operating data. He had just finished the equipment inspection and there were still slight sweat stains on his face. He said that with the continuous improvement of technical equipment, the accident rate has now been greatly reduced, and a large wind farm requires only a few technicians to take charge of the main operation and maintenance work. "This smart control system can respond to grid demand within 0.2 seconds, just like putting a rein on the unruly wind."

Storage electricity at low electricity and discharge peak electricity, and it can store up to 180,000 kWh in just 2 hours. Not far from the wind farm of China Shipbuilding Corporation, Xinjiang's first new independent energy storage power station on the grid side - Xinjiang Woneng Thirteen Room Energy Storage Power Station.

Xinjiang's first new independent energy storage power station on the grid side—Xinjiang Woneng Thirteen Room Energy Storage One Power Station. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Zhang Xiaocheng

The energy storage system of this energy storage power station consists of 27 energy storage units, each energy storage converter and an energy storage converter booster integrated machine composed of 2 energy storage converters and 1 3460 kVA transformer.

"As the 'power bank' of the power grid, the energy storage power station effectively alleviates the output pressure of wind power in the thirteen-bedroom area and balances the supply and demand relationship in the power grid." Wei Junliang, the head of operation and maintenance, said that using artificial intelligence and other technologies to conduct relevant data analysis and prediction can achieve accurate regulation of the load and output of the energy storage power station, and improve the stability and reliability of the power grid. This is of great significance to promoting the efficient utilization of wind power in the Thirteen-bedroom area.

Xinjiang has rich energy resources, and its total wind energy resource reserves rank second in the country. The area of ​​Hami wind zone accounts for 66.3% of the entire Xinjiang region, and the wind energy development potential is huge.

According to statistics from the Hami Municipal Development and Reform Commission, Hami has now built a national comprehensive energy base mainly composed of tens of millions of kilowatt wind power bases and millions of kilowatt photovoltaic power generation bases. Up to now, the city has installed 32.026 million kilowatts of power grid-connected, of which 18.475 million kilowatts of wind power and 4.533 million kilowatts of photovoltaic capacity, and the proportion of new energy installed capacity has exceeded 70%.

In recent years, with the accelerated development of the new energy industry, Hami has become another prefecture and city in Xinjiang with a GDP of over 100 billion yuan, and its GDP growth rate ranked first among prefectures and cities in Xinjiang for two consecutive years in 2023 and 2024.

At the 13-room million-kilowatt wind farm of China Shipbuilding Group, staff are measuring the operating temperature of the equipment. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Zhang Xiaocheng

Now, Shi Rui and many colleagues choose to settle down in Hami City. The ever-changing urban development and changes are an important reason for their settlement. "Every gust of north wind passing outside the Gobi can be transformed into the east wind that drives Hami to high-quality development. Here we have our sweat and dedication, and there are also opportunities for rise brought by green development." Shi Rui said.

When night fell, the vast Gobi Desert was shrouded in the deep darkness, and the fan groups of thirteen rooms lit up red beacons, like the beating pulses on the earth. On the monitoring screen, the real-time power generation curve fluctuates with the wind speed, and the jumping numbers witness the green transformation of this Gobi Desert.