China Turns Old Salt Mines Into Clean Energy Powerhouses

An old salt mine in eastern China just became a massive underground battery capable of powering an entire city.

The facility in Tai'an, Shandong province, transforms empty salt caverns into "energy reservoirs" using compressed air energy storage. During off-peak hours, electricity compresses air and stores it underground, then releases it during peak demand to generate power for four hours straight.

Project manager Liu Shaoyong says the station produces 460 million kilowatt-hours annually. That's enough electricity to meet the yearly needs of more than 200,000 households.

China reached a major milestone in 2025 when renewable energy installations surpassed half of the country's total power capacity. The achievement came faster than expected thanks to innovative technologies like the Tai'an facility and the world's largest offshore wind turbine.

That turbine, developed by Dongfang Electric Corporation, generates 62 kilowatt-hours with each rotation. A single unit produces enough electricity yearly to power 55,000 homes while cutting 80,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions.

In Shanghai, engineers took innovation further by building an underwater data center powered directly by offshore wind farms above it. The setup eliminates energy losses from long-distance transmission and reduces carbon equivalent to 1.6 million trees absorbing CO2 annually.

The Ripple Effect

China's clean energy breakthroughs are creating waves far beyond its borders. At the Solar and Storage Live Africa 2026 exhibition in Johannesburg, Chinese photovoltaic equipment and smart energy solutions drew widespread attention from African nations working to expand energy access.

Qhakazile Mathebula, general manager for digital energy at City Power Johannesburg, welcomed the contributions. "Chinese renewable energy companies' investments and technologies are helping accelerate Africa's shift toward cleaner and more sustainable energy," she said.

The cost-effective and scalable solutions matter enormously for countries addressing supply constraints. As China produces clean energy technology at unprecedented scale and pace, it's making renewable power accessible to regions that need it most.

Jeremy Wallace, a professor of China Studies at Johns Hopkins, wrote in Wired magazine that China's production scale could sweep away "the once seemingly intractable problems of energy poverty and fossil-fuel dependence."

By 2030, Tai'an alone expects its clean energy storage capacity to approach 5 million kilowatts. Similar projects are spreading across northwest and southwest China, where data centers increasingly run on renewable power to support the country's fast-growing digital economy.

China pledged in 2024 to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by 7 to 10 percent from peak levels by 2035, and these technological leaps are turning that ambitious goal into reality while lighting the way for others to follow.