(Yicai Global) March 29 -- China is encouraging large photovoltaic power installations to be located in desert and barren regions, such as the Gobi desert, so as to better protect the environment, according to new standards for the solar industry released yesterday.

Deserts, barren land, unutilized land, land reserved for construction, oilfields, gas fields and coal mining areas, which can't be restored, can be used by the PV sector, according to a notice issued by the Ministry of Natural Resources, National Forestry and Grassland Administration and the Comprehensive Department of the National Energy Administration.

But PV projects should not be built on arable land, ecological protected areas or regions with historical, cultural and natural landscape value, it said. No farmland, grassland or forests should be turned into solar farms.

If solar gardens take up agricultural land, a complementary approach must be adopted in which none of the original vegetation is destroyed.

Those existing PV facilities within ecological protected areas should be managed according to the law and should not be expanded further, it said. And the natural environment should be restored once these projects expire, it added.

Editor: Kim Taylor