China’s giant Gobi solar plant runs after dark on salt, not batteries

China Three Gorges Corporation (CTG) has put the world’s largest solar PV-plus-concentrated-solar hybrid into commercial trial operation in the Gobi Desert — and its headline trick is delivering power after sunset without a single lithium battery.

The 1-gigawatt Hami project in Xinjiang stores the sun’s energy as heat in molten salt, letting it keep generating for up to eight hours after dark.