Guangxi Opens Its First 'Carbon Neutral' Gas Station

The Liuhua gas station and photovoltaic (PV) power generation project in Baise, the first "carbon neutral" gas station in South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, went into operation on May 28.

Built and operated by the Guangxi subsidiary of China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec Group), the station is expected to produce 91,000 kilowatt-hours of power annually.

In addition to meeting the power demands of the station itself, the generation system can also supply more than 10,000 kWh of power to the grid.

The PV section of the project is expected to help reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 81.5 tons.

Sinopec Group in Guangxi has been following the green and low-carbon development principle and stepping up efforts to build comprehensive stations that provide oil, natural gas and hydrogen refueling as well as charging service.

Making full use of the roofs of gas stations and even parking areas, the company developed distributed PV and solar power generation projects.

So far, four PV power generation and "carbon neutral" gas stations are in service in Nanning, capital city of Guangxi, with a total annual power generation of 226,000 kilowatt-hours.

The company plans to build 70 "carbon neutral" gas stations in 2021 and 500 during China's 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25).

Under the framework of China's goal of peaking carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060, Sinopec Group is also making plans for construction of 160 PV power generation stations in South China's Hainan and Guangdong provinces as well as Southwest China's Yunnan Province in addition to Guangxi.

In the next five years, the company plans to build 7,000 distributed PV power stations and will develop several carbon neutral modes, all aimed at reaching carbon neutralization in 2050, ten years ahead of the national goal.

(Executive editor: Wang Ruoting)