China's First "Solar City"

Source: GreenPeace China

China is often branded a climate killer. With 70% of its energy needs coming from coal this vast country is indeed one of the key culprits of climate change. But China is making some giant strides in green innovation. Take a trip to Dezhou, a city in the East of China where the sun always shines.

With 5.5 million residents, Dezhou doesn’t look very special it's one of the many 3rd tier cities that are sprouting up all over China. But there’s something special about this city; look around and you see that all of rooftops are covered in solar heaters. In fact, in the new part of Dezhou everyone uses solar heating and about 90% of homes in the old part of the city have solar heating. Dezhou is China's first Solar City, where solar energy powers everything from street lighting to tourists carts.

But the best thing about the solar panels, for Dezhou residents isn’t that they are helping to cut greenhouse gases, but that they save money. Compared with buying an electric heater, a solar heater pays for itself in five and a half years. And from then on it doesn't cost anything. Another reason Dezhou residents love their solar panels is that the Solar industry creates jobs. In 2007, 800,000 people had jobs in the solar panel industry: that works out to be about one in three people of working age in the city. That figure is expected to grow to 150,000 by 2020. And now solar energy is such an integral part of life in Dezhou that there’s even a design industry built up around how to mould the solar heaters aesthetically into the designing of building.