One of Mingyang Group's wind power equipment production lines swings into action. [Photo/baotou.gov.cn]

The Mingyang Group New Energy Intelligent Manufacturing Industrial Park, a major project with an overall planned area of 2,100 mu (140 hectares) costing 10 billion yuan ($1.57 billion), started construction recently in the Shiguai district of Baotou city – located in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region.

Project construction director Han Jifei said phase one would be completed by end-October and production would start by the end of the year. He said that within seven months, four machinery and equipment manufacturing plants and a national comprehensive experimental testing and certification center for onshore wind turbines would be built here.

On completion, Baotou will have a significant new energy R&D, manufacturing, operations and support center. It is understood that it will have the largest onshore wind power production capacity, the highest concentration of core components, the most complete localized industrial facilities, the largest single-machine capacity and the highest degree of customization in China.

To date, Mingyang Group has signed contracts with 13 contractors in Baotou – including Baogang Group, China Second Metallurgy Group, First Machinery Group and Inner Mongolia North Heavy Industries Group – achieving 85 percent localization of the construction of the project.

In addition, the group and the Baotou municipal government have jointly set up the Mingyang Research Institute, which has started research work on related fields such as industrial supply chain technology, new power systems and the deep integration of energy and modern information technology.

Moreover, the digital economy operations of the group will also be settled in the city.

The development of the industrial park is widely seen as being of great importance for the city to achieve its goals of peak carbon and carbon neutrality – and will also help it to build a national and even international new energy industry hub.