On the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, new energy is being used for a diversity of purposes. Solar energy and other new energy have been widely applied in heating, cooking, lighting, irrigation, telecommunications, and other areas of daily life and work. In Tibet, passive solar housing is one of the first solar technologies introduced – it first appeared in Ali, Naqu and Lhasa in the 1980s. In addition to providing heating in winter, solar housing offers a better home environment and raises people’s living standards. Energy conservation and environmental protection have become important factors for farmers and herdsmen on the Plateau to consider when they build houses. By the end of 2017 clean energy – mainly water power, solar energy and biogas – contributed 87 percent of the total installed capacity of electricity in Tibet Autonomous Region. There were more than 400,000 solar stoves in use, with solar water heating systems covering 450,000 sq m of floor space and passive solar housing some 420,000 sq m. All of this is reducing the public’s reliance on traditional fuels.
In Qinghai, provincial-level programs have been initiated in farming and pastoral areas to promote passive solar housing, solar stoves, solar water heaters, solar batteries, and household wind turbines, and to replace the burning of coal and dung with electricity for heating. By the end of 2017, support from the province had resulted in the use of 102,200 solar stoves, 12,800 solar water heaters, and 9,200 sets of solar batteries; 13,100 passive solar housing units had been built as demonstration projects, totaling 1,305,000 sq m. Electric and photovoltaic heating have gradually replaced dung and coal-burning, contributing to reduced pollutant emissions, a better home environment, and higher living standards. This has also reined in excess exploitation of grasslands, beneficial to the remediation and improvement of the grassland ecosystem.
In villages on the Plateau, a number of measures have been taken to improve the environment. By building modern-standard toilets, livestock pens, and housing, and undertaking domestic garbage collection and disposal, domestic wastewater collection and treatment, drinking water source protection, efficient crop stalk utilization, noise abatement, and human and livestock feces pollution control, the local governments have effectively addressed such problems as random dumping of garbage, illegal construction or extension of houses, unauthorized mining, and open-air burning of crop stalks. People on the Plateau now enjoy better housing, drinking water and transport, and a clean environment and convenient facilities.
In 2017, shared bicycle services entered Lhasa. These bicycles quickly became a favored choice for the locals when they needed to go somewhere, adding flavor to the city’s charms. In Lhasa, Xining and other high-altitude cities, the number of new-energy vehicles keeps increasing; in core protection areas such as the Qomolangma and Napa Lake transport services are provided by new-energy vehicles. Green transport and tourism have become the preferred options of the public.
Confidence in the ecological culture is getting enhanced.