LHASA - When Lhapa's hands are busy gripping the steering wheel and he is unable to turn his prayer wheel, solar energy kicks in and turns it for him.

Powered by a 4-cm-long, 2-cm-wide solar battery, the 15-cm-high golden prayer wheel mounted on his dashboard steadily whirls and sends out prayers to Buddha.

"They are very cheap, just 30 yuan ($4.4), and you can buy them from any booth on the street," said Lhapa, who lives in Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet autonomous region.

"You find solar power everywhere in Lhasa."

In a neighborhood in Lhasa's western suburbs, almost every courtyard home is equipped today with a solar-powered water heater.

"When I was young, people did not shower very often because we did not have enough fuel to heat the water. Now, with solar-powered water heaters, I can shower every day," said Kelsang Namgyal, a man in his late 50s who grew up in a farming family.

He said he has also installed a solar-powered stove in his courtyard home.

"The stove is much more efficient than the old stove that was fueled by dried yak dung. It takes about 20 minutes to braise beef," he said.

About 395,000 solar-powered stoves have been put into use by Tibetans, according to the government.

At the home of Migmar - Kelsang Namgyal's neighbor - a solar-fueled heater has replaced the air-conditioner and electric heater.

In recent years, Tibet has been working to develop sources of green energy, such as solar, wind and bio-fuels, and put them to good use.

"Tibet has the richest source of solar energy in China and one of the richest in the world. The region receives about 3,000 hours of sunshine annually, on average," said Ma Shengjie, director of the regional government's science and technology department.

"With the government's efforts in the past few years, Tibet has led China in the application of solar energy," Ma said.

At a village in Lhasa's Maizhokunggar county, Pasang has equipped himself with a solar generator to light his tent when he is herding cattle at his summer pastures.

"The generator weighs about 5 kg. After charging it for a whole day, it will power two lamps for the whole night," he said.

In the mountainous, high-altitude regions of northern and western Tibet, the government has widely promoted passive solar building designs. The windows, walls and floors of a structure are designed to collect, store and distribute solar energy with higher efficiency than ordinary solar structures.

In a passive solar structure, the daytime temperature in the winter can be 10 C higher than it is outdoors, meeting the needs of a school building, Ma said.

A passive solar house is also cheaper to build than an active solar house, which needs mechanical or electrical devices to increase the efficiency of solar energy.

The cost of updating a house with passive solar building designs is equal to 20 percent of the expense of building a house, Ma said.

According to the government, Tibet has 400,000 square meters of passive solar housing.

To date, the capacity of photovoltaic power plants in Tibet totals 9 megawatts, accounting for 13 percent of the national volume.

Meanwhile, larger photovoltaic power plants, which convert solar power to direct current, are on the way.

A photovoltaic power plant with a capacity of 10 mW has been under construction in Yang, which is about 90 km from Lhasa, since March, thanks to an investment of 220 million yuan.

The construction of a photovoltaic power plant with a capacity of 30 mW in Xigaze, 250 km from Lhasa, also started in March and another one, with a capacity of 2 mW, will be built in western Tibet's Ngari prefecture this year, Ma said.

Tibet also plans to build a wind power plant with a capacity of 50 mW in Nagqu in northern Tibet in 2015, he said.

Additionally, the government plans to invest about 1.06 billion yuan on helping rural residents build coal gas facilities between 2008 and 2015, Ma said.

Xinhua

(China Daily 05/24/2011 page4)