"City of future" fosters low-carbon growth for green development

Aerial photo taken on April 1, 2021 shows the Xiongan Railway Station of the Beijing-Xiongan intercity railway in Xiongan New Area, north China's Hebei Province. (Xinhua/Xing Guangli)

SHIJIAZHUANG, Dec. 8 (Xinhua) -- From environment-friendly architecture to photovoltaic power generation, the Xiongan New Area, which has entered the stage of large-scale construction, has been expanding the concept of low carbon to all aspects.

All the buildings visible from the Xiongan business service center square looking north have met the "three-star" standard of green building, with some achieving ultra-low energy consumption, saving a total of 11 million kWh of electricity annually.

Green building refers to development that can save resources, protect the environment and reduce pollution in the entire service cycle. The "Three-star" standard is the highest grade of green building.

Announced in April 2017, Xiongan's primary goal is to take over Beijing's functions nonessential to its role as the national capital. Dubbed the "city of future," this new area is expected to become a new home for Beijing's colleges, hospitals, business headquarters and financial and public institutions.

The green buildings in Xiongan are connected to the raw material "waste-free factory" at one end, and the construction waste recycling farm at the other.

The concrete mixing station adopts fully enclosed production, centralized dust removal, ground source heat pump and other processes and technologies, which reduce energy consumption by more than 30 percent and carbon emission by more than 60 percent compared with traditional mixing stations.

The construction waste recycling farm has an annual processing capacity of up to 700,000 tonnes of construction waste, and the recycled materials produced can be used for mountain landscaping and engineering filling.

Xiongan is another state-level new area after Shenzhen and Pudong. From blueprint preparation to large-scale construction, 240 key projects have so far been promoted, with accumulated investment exceeding 490 billion yuan (about 70 billion U.S. dollars).

According to Xiongan's planning and construction bureau, green buildings account for 100 percent of the new projects, among which urban buildings are subject to the two-star standard or above, and government-invested and large public buildings should meet the three-star standard.

The green practice of "photovoltaic plus" is not uncommon in Xiongan. The 42,000 square meters of photovoltaic panels at the top of Xiongan railway station have generated more than 10 million kWh of electricity since it was officially connected to the grid in December 2020.

Photovoltaic modules are also frequently installed on highway subgrades and toll stations.

Meanwhile, a total of 469,000 mu (about 31,267 hectares) of afforestation has been carried out in Xiongan over the past five years, with the forest coverage rate rising from 11 percent to 34 percent.

The Xiongan country park, with a forest area of over 1,000 hectares, can add 10,000 tonnes of carbon sinks every year.

The concept of green and low-carbon development has been expanded from urban to rural areas. Xiongan has selected 25 villages to carry out the development of "waste-free villages."

"We have explored linking the points-based management system with basket shopping, garbage sorting and recycling, and established a long-term mechanism suitable for rural solid waste management to promote the reduction of solid waste sources in rural life," said Wen Bo, Party secretary of Hugezhuang Village.

The Xiongan New Area has collected and transported 3.45 million cubic meters of garbage from rivers and villages. As a result of the removal of all the old waste, rural areas are now able to dispose of freshly accumulated garbage on a daily basis.

The Xiongan New Area green, low carbon and energy standardization technical committee has been recently set up to strengthen top-level design, focus on key areas to build a high-quality standard system and actively explore the path of internationalization of low-carbon energy standards to drive the "low-carbon growth" of Xiongan to a new stage.