feed solar and wind energy the darkest and colder place in the world

In a place where the nights last six months, wind gusts can reach 300 km/hy them the temperatures collapse below the −40 ° C, the idea of using solar and wind energy sounds like a joke. For a few months, however, China is feeding its Antarctica base with renewable energy. How the hell have they done it?

Short. Five years ago, electrical engineer Sun Hongbin, today president of the Technological University of Taiyuan, received what seemed an impossible mission: to build a renewable energy system capable of supporting the most extreme conditions of the earth.

As he has told Scientific AmericanThe objective was to align the new Qinling Antarctic Station with the green commitments of the Chinese government. The result cost 14 million dollars, was officially inaugurated in early 2025 and is a technological feat that now other countries with Antarctica bases want to imitate.

Diesel logistics nightmare. Antarctica stations work almost exclusively with diesel generators, but this dependency has a very high cost. Not only because diesel is expensive, but because transporting it is a logistics nightmare that requires mobilizing breakwinds and military personnel for each replenishment trip, which is usually annual.

In addition, environmental risk is huge. The spills are frequent and, in such a fragile ecosystem, where the low temperatures slow down the decomposition, any discharge is a catastrophe. Not to mention the emissions of the combustion itself.

The renewables did not endure. The problem of conventional renewable systems is that they do not work in Antarctica. The extreme cold causes the blades of the wind turbines to become brittle, the performance of the solar panels plummeted and the lithium batteries stop working. And that without counting the polar night: six months without seeing the sunlight.

Provided to overcome these obstacles, Sun Hongbin did not walk with little ones. His team raised A 2,000 square meters laboratory At the Technological University of Taiyuan that, basically, it was a piece of Antarctica in China. To put to the limit each component, they simulated freezing temperatures, winds of more than 200 km/hyams artificial.

How the hell did it. After four years of tests, the team found a robust system that combines wind energy, solar energy, batteries and, the key of everything, hydrogen. The wind turbines have a vertical design reminiscent of an egg blender, which reduces the structural tension and lowers the center of gravity so that the wind does not take them.

The solar panels are mounted on a special frame made of reinforced plastic with carbon fiber. This material has a lower thermal conductivity than aluminum, so it does not deform so easily with sudden temperature changes.

As for the batteries, instead of the typical lithium ions, they used lithium-ditana. Its internal chemistry facilitates the movement of ions at temperatures below zero. In addition, they put them in a thermal housing that takes advantage of their own residual heat to stay at an optimal temperature.

The cake widge. During the polar summer, when there is a sun and spare wind, energy is used to feed an electrolyzer that separates water into oxygen and hydrogen. Hydrogen is stored in high pressure tanks. When winter arrives and the other sources falter, hydrogen is recombine with oxygen in a fuel pile to generate electricity.

The only residue? Water and heat, which are recycled to heat the system itself. According to those responsible for the project, the base can work for about 48 hours only with the energy stored in the form of hydrogen.

The way to follow. The integrated wind, sun, hydrogen and batteries system has a total capacity of about 230 kW, which It is 60% of the capacity Total Qinling generation. The remaining 40% continues to depend on diesel as support, but the savings is gigantic, so it has received praise from the international scientific community.

This is the “first large -scale clean energy system in the world capable of working all year in a polar environment.” And there are already other countries investigating how to adopt it while China maintains its goal of reaching 100% renewable energy.

Image | CCTV