Happiness Brought by the Wind
"After the Wind Farm was put into operation in 2017, we started to develop the tourism industry and experienced earth-shattering changes in life. In this poverty-stricken village, we have hope for prosperity. Power is the impetus for our development!"
The villagers of Qingshuidian Village, Zaoyang wore smiles from the heart - the best affirmation of the CR Power Zaoyang Bailu Wind Power Poverty Alleviation Project. As an old revolutionary base area and poverty-stricken area in the Dabie Mountains, Hubei Province, Zaoyang has 77 key poverty-stricken villages and a poverty-stricken population of 51,500. Speaking of the local conditions, the person in charge of the city's Poverty Alleviation and Development Office said, "The poverty-stricken villages are over-populated and have poor natural conditions, backward transportation facilities, and huge unmet needs in public service. Most strikingly, the overall village-level collective economy is backward." More importantly, the remote location deep in the mountains creates high costs on power line construction, so power access has become a huge problem for the villagers, and inhibiting development.
Selection of proper investment projects, increasing the operating revenue of poverty-stricken villages, and effectively solving the predicament of no dominating industry and weak collective economy in the 77 poverty-stricken villages have become key issues to be addressed by Zaoyang. In response to the state's call for poverty alleviation, to lift more people out of poverty, China Resources Wind Power (Zaoyang) Co., Ltd. actively communicates and negotiates with Zaoyang Municipal People's Government. In April 2016, it finally entered into the Zaoyang Bailu Wind Power Project Investment Framework Agreement with Zaoyang Municipal People's Government to commence the Zaoyang Bailu Wind Power Project. Alongside project expansion, this project is also expected to gradually transform the predicament of Zaoyang's poverty-stricken villages.
The project has ten 2MW wind power generation units, a total generation capacity of 20MW. Construction started in July 2016, and all units were put into operation in January 2017. During construction and operation, the project has provided a large number of jobs for local villagers, allowing them to work contently right at home rather than travelling. Furthermore, they can take care of their fields without going back and forth during the busy farming season, and spend more time with seniors and children. With the completion of the project, transmission lines have been connected to the houses, offering power access to villagers in certain mountainous areas. Moreover, about RMB 10 million has been invested in water and soil conservation and vegetation restoration since construction started, greatly boosting green economic development and ecological conservation.
To accelerate the poverty alleviation in the 77 poverty-stricken villages of Zaoyang – in particular its 5 extremely poor villages – CR Power again entered into an agreement with Zaoyang Municipal People's Government in 2018 to jointly build and operate the 20MW Zaoyang Pinglin P2 Project and further improve the lives of local villagers.
As the "New Energy + Poverty Alleviation" project of Zaoyang Egret Wind Power combines industrial development with local development, and made positive contributions to poverty alleviation, the project stood out from 93 participating cases and won the "2018 αi Social Value Co-Creation" Enterprise Targeted Poverty Alleviation Case Model Award, which was issued by the Management School of Fudan University and the Simeng CSR Promotion Centre.
