China is accelerating its use of clean energy, and the sources of such energy are becoming increasingly diverse.

China recently successfully achieved a dry-thermal-rock test power generation in the Matouying, Tangshan, Hebei dry-thermal-rock exploration area, the latest development in the country's clean-energy development, CCTV reported Sunday.

Dry thermal rock is a medium for heat energy inside the earth and is an internationally recognized clean energy source.

In simple terms, dry thermal rock resource is the heat present in rocks, which has the characteristics of large amount of resources, wide distribution and long sustainable utilization time.

The principle of this dry thermal rock resource power generation is to convert underground heat energy into electricity through engineering technology.

With the urgent need for clean energy in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the breakthrough in dry thermal rock energy utilization technology has a catalytic effect on improving the clean energy system in the region and the country as a whole, the report quoted Wu Qiang, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, as saying.

In 2019, the Chinese team drilled and captured the shallowest buried dry thermal rock right here, with a preliminary resource estimate equivalent to 7.8 billion tons of standard coal.

Zhang Guishuang, deputy director of the Hebei Coalfield Geology Bureau, said that the next step will be to build a national demonstration base for dry thermal rock development and research, based on the results obtained from the project and relying on the advantages of local location and demand.

This is China's latest innovation on the road to using new energy sources.

On June 18, a 50-megawatt solar thermal power project in Hami, Xinjiang, used solar thermal energy stored during the day to generate electricity under lightless conditions at night, marking the project's realization of 24-hour uninterrupted power generation.

The project is a demonstration solar thermal project in China, invested and built by China Energy Construction Investment Corporation.

The project has both power generation and energy storage functions, and is a green power source that can replace fossil energy power plants as base load and peak load, and plays an important role in ensuring safe, stable and efficient operation of the power system.

After the project is fully put into operation, it can provide about 198.3 million kWh of electricity to the grid every year and save 61,900 tons of standard coal.

New solar thermal project in China can generate electricity 24 hours a day