Photo shows staff of State Grid Tongliang Power Supply Company inspect electrical power lines in the lemon planting base in Gaolou Village, Tongliang District, southwest China's Chongqing Municipality.
BEIJING, May 24 (Xinhua) -- With the refrigerated warehouse built up here this year, lemons are sure to be sold at a good price, said Jiang Zhiling, a manager of Chongqing Taixiang agricultural development Co., Ltd., pointing to a 5 meter-high building constructed starting from 2022 with support by State Grid Tongliang Power Supply Company in Tongliang District, southwest China's Chongqing Municipality.
As a benchmark enterprise introduced by Tongliang to promote rural revitalization, the company has established a lemon planting base covering an area of about 133 hectares in Gaolou Village of Tongliang, with an annual output of about three million kilograms.
The best time to harvest lemons lasts about only one month. Once missing the time, the planter either needs to sell the fruits at a low price to distributors, or transport them to Anyue in southwest China's Sichuan Province, which is 100 kilometers away, for cold storage.
Storage in Anyue used to cost over 200,000 yuan each year, including about 100,000 yuan of shipping fees and over 100,000 yuan of warehouse rental expense, according to Jiang.
It was urgent for the company to build a nearby cold storage warehouse.
Having learned about the demand, State Grid Tongliang Power Supply Company scaled up the capacity of the transformer closest to the lemon base from 100 kVA to 400 kVA, added additional wire poles and new electrical power lines at the beginning of 2022.
With these efforts ensuring sufficient electricity supply, the first phase of a new cold storage warehouse was established in the lemon base. It covers 300 square meters of land, enough to store over 500 tonnes of lemons per year.
For Chongqing Taixiang agricultural development Co., Ltd., the establishment of the warehouse has addressed the problems of having no pricing power in bargain with distributors and spending high for fruit storage in the neighboring province.
Eliminated long-distance transportation has also saved the planter a large amount of fuel consumption fees, said Zhang Chengbing, director of a power supply station of State Grid Tongliang Power Supply Company.
Meanwhile, local farmers have seen more money in their pockets, as they can not only charge land rents, but also earn salaries by working for the lemon base.
Photo shows Photo shows staff of State Grid Tongliang Power Supply Company visit the solar power plant in Shaoyun Village, Tongliang District, southwest China's Chongqing Municipality.
In order to help advance rural revitalization, State Grid Tongliang Power Supply Company also launched a power project in Shaoyun Village of Tongliang in partnership with local authority.
They tried the method of "photovoltaic (PV) plus energy storage", aiming to achieve local storage and consumption of green electricity.
A solar power plant equipped with a PV system with a total capacity of 1.5 megawatts and 12 sets of energy storage facilities of 2,000 kW/3,665 kWh was therefore set up in a 667-square meter uncultivated land in the village.
When the sun is shining, the plant can generate 9,000 kWh of power at maximum per day, which is enough to meet the electricity demands of the entire Shaoyun Village as well as five adjacent villages, according to Liu Anxiang, deputy general manager of Chongqing Minneng industrial Co., Ltd., developer of the solar power plant project.
A total of 306,672 kWh of electricity was generated in the project from November 3, 2022 to May 4, 2023, according to data from State Grid Tongliang Power Supply Company.
During the period, the energy capacity of storage facilities, which can bank surplus electricity in sunny days and low demand hours and then release it during peak hours or power outage, reached 680 kWh, and the power capacity stood at 246 kWh. (Edited by Su Dan with Xinhua Silk Road, sudan@xinhua.org)
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