New solar panels now occupy pride of place at this villager's home in Qingshan district. [Photo/Baotou news network]

A pilot project to install solar panels on the rooftops of the Qingshan district of Baotou city – located in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region – is about to start large-scale development and some installations have already been completed.

Inner Mongolia previously accounted for 11 in the first group of 676 of such pilot programs in the country, announced by the National Energy Administration. But so far Qingshan is the only quarter in Baotou to be approved as a national district-wide rooftop photovoltaic pilot.

The total cost of the project is 600 million yuan ($92.74 million). On completion, the annual power generation will be about 200 million Kilowatt-hour and it is estimated that it will save about 60,000 metric tons of standard coal per year.

According to staff members at the Qingshan district development and reform commission, the contractors will now undertake various tasks such as signing a cooperation agreement with the roof owners, appraise roof-bearing capacities and put together designs.

The installation is expected to start at the end of April and be completed by the end of October, with an installed capacity of 150 mW.

Qingshan district is understood to be planning to complete the task one year ahead of schedule.