Yalong River Hydropower Development, part of China's State Development & Investment (SDIC), has commissioned the 1GW Suorong solar farm in Sichuan's Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture.

Situated approximately 4,600m above sea level, the facility ranks as the world's third-highest solar installation, trailing only China Huadian's 100MW array at 5,228m and Dynavolt Renewable Energy Technology's 40MW/193-megawatt-hour solar-storage hybrid at 4,700m.

Suorong integrates into a larger hydro-solar system, pairing photovoltaic (PV) output with upstream hydropower to balance fluctuations and maximise the use of shared transmission lines. The solar plant feeds power through the same grid as Yalong River hydropower assets run by SDIC's Yalong Hydro unit, totalling around 21GW of capacity.

China's PV capacity surged by 46% in 2024 alone, adding 278GW to hit 888GW overall – equivalent to 27% of the nation's total power capacity. Solar contributed roughly 8% of electricity production that year, building on 217GW added in 2023 and 86GW in 2022.