China broke ground on an CNY 80bn (EUR 10.8bn) renewables project in Inner Mongolia, part of a massive clean-power rollout to achieve the nation’s ambitious climate targets. 

The project, located in the Kubuqi Desert, will have 16GW of power capacity when completed, according to a statement by China Three Gorges Group, one of the two builders. It will be able to transmit 40 billion kWh of electricity to Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province annually, with more than half from clean power, according to a report by state media Xinhua News. 

The facility is set to become the world’s largest renewable project in a desert region, the company said. It ultimately will include 8GW of solar and 4GW of wind energy, plus 4GW of upgraded coal power to adjust for peak demand, according to Xinhua.

The clean energy base is part of China’s plan to build 450GW of renewable power, mainly in spacious hinterlands, and the country last month announced it had started building 95GW in the first phase. China aims to have 1.2TW of wind and solar power by 2030, the year the country aims to peak carbon emissions.

China Three Gorges didn’t give a time frame for the Inner Mongolia project’s completion, but said the current construction phase includes 1GW of solar capacity equipped with energy storage. 

The energy base is one of 22 renewable power projects that Three Gorges launched on Wednesday, with a combined planned capacity of 19.6GW and total investment of CNY 101bn, according to a statement by the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission.

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