Nigeria Times

By Yao Xueqing, People’s Daily

As the sea breeze rushes toward a wind farm on the shores of the Yellow Sea, at a speed of 7.6 meters per second, the blades of towering wind turbines start spinning.

These turbines convert mechanical energy into electrical energy, and in an instant, the “green electricity” is transmitted through undersea cables to the land, where it is fed into the power grid.

Over 70 kilometers away from the wind farm, machines in a turbine general assembly factory are running tirelessly, powered by the “green electricity” from the sea. Nacelles and hubs are assembled here and then transported offshore to join with blades and towers to form gigantic “windmills.”

Yancheng, located on the coast of east China’s Jiangsu province, boasts the country’s largest offshore wind power industrial cluster and a huge capacity of offshore wind power. It has developed a comprehensive offshore wind power industrial chain that integrates research and design, equipment manufacturing, resource development, and operational services. It is using “green electricity” to produce “green generators.”

In a lab in the general assembly factory of Goldwind Science and Technology Co., Ltd. in Dafeng Economic Development Zone, Yancheng, a prototype of a 10 MW wind turbine was being tested, with real-time data flashing on a large screen.

“Research and design, as well as prototype testing, are the starting point for wind turbine manufacturing,” said Lu Jinhong, deputy director of the lab.

According to him, the company would first collaborate with suppliers to produce a prototype based on blueprints, and then send it to the laboratory and a test field for hundreds of integrated tests. After third-party certification, the prototype then enters mass production. The entire process takes about a year.

The general assembly factory of Goldwind Science and Technology Co., Ltd. primarily assembles the structural components of nacelles and hubs. As a facility that started with producing 2 MW offshore wind turbines, it is now able to manufacture turbines up to 11 MW, with an annual production capacity exceeding 1,200 units, 30 percent of which are exported.

Deputy general manager Ning Haifeng attributes the company’s growth to the efforts made by the local industry to strengthen and extend the industrial chain.

A wind turbine comprises a nacelle, a hub, blades, and a tower. It has thousands of components manufactured by over 300 first-tier suppliers.

Most of the large components can be sourced in Dafeng Economic Development Zone, while key parts are available from suppliers in Yancheng. About 95 percent of all components can be found in Jiangsu province, where a supply chain that enables delivery within three hours is developed.

In recent years, Yancheng has gathered 41 enterprises above the designated size, building the largest offshore wind power industrial cluster in the country, with the total production capacity accounting for approximately 40 percent of the national output.

Yancheng boasts a coastline of 582 kilometers, with an average annual wind speed of 7.6 meters per second at a height of 100 meters above the sea level, and annual full-load hours exceeding 3,000.

Since 2016, Yancheng has established 23 offshore wind farms, with a total installed capacity of over 5.54 million kW, accounting for 46.9 percent of Jiangsu province’s total and 14.9 percent of the national total.

In the city’s Binhai county, 75 virtual wind turbines were displayed on a large screen at the central control center of a smart wind farm. Real-time parameters, such as wind speed and rotation speed, would be revealed with just a click on any of these virtual turbines.

“To make the turbines turn, we first need to know where the wind is coming from,” said Yang Rong, deputy general manager of the Jiangsu Offshore Wind Power Company, State Power Investment Corporation.

Each turbine’s nacelle is equipped with a yaw system that can accurately predict wind direction and speed each hour, helping adjust the turbine’s orientation – similar to how sunflowers always face the sun – to maximize their exposure to the wind.

Yang told People’s Daily that the blades can rotate at a maximum speed of 12 revolutions per minute. It is seemingly slow, but given their length of about 100 meters, the tips can reach speeds of up to 300 kilometers per hour. The blades drive the gearbox to rotate at 1,600 revolutions per minute, enabling the conversion of wind energy into electrical energy through electromagnetic induction in the machine.

In 2023, Yancheng’s offshore wind farms generated 14.807 billion kWh of “green electricity,” all of which was integrated into the power grid. Of this, 12.16 billion kWh was consumed locally, while the remainder was transmitted to other regions.

The three offshore wind farms in Binhai county have a total installed capacity of more than 1.1 million kW, generating 3.079 billion kWh of electricity annually, which accounts for 95.6 percent of the county’s total electricity consumption. In Dafeng, this figure stands at 70.24 percent. It means that most of the electricity used in the production of wind turbines by companies like Goldwind comes from the turbines themselves.

Today, it’s becoming a reality that wind turbines are generating electricity, and that same electricity is being used to produce more turbines.

By Xu Peiyu

Chinese automakers are enjoying robust growth and rising market shares, as revealed by semi-annual reports recently released by multiple automobile groups.

According to statistics from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), from January to September, Chinese automakers sold nearly 11.92 million passenger vehicles, up 20.5 percent from a year ago, with a market share of 63.8 percent. Notably, the market share of new energy vehicles manufactured by Chinese automakers exceeded 80 percent.

Industry experts attribute the rapid rise of Chinese automotive brands to their sustained increase in R&D investment, as it gives them the ability to make technological breakthroughs and deliver innovative products.

BYD is the leading car manufacturer by sales volume in China. It is also the biggest investor in R&D among Chinese automakers. According to statistics, in the first half of this year, BYD’s R&D expenditures ranked first among over 5,300 A-share listed companies, amounting to 20.2 billion yuan ($2.84 billion), a 42 percent increase year on year and a record high. This figure was 6.6 billion yuan higher than BYD’s net profit during the same period.

New entrants in the automotive market have also shown impressive R&D investments. Li Auto invested over 6 billion yuan in R&D in the first half of the year, marking a 42 percent increase compared to the previous year, while NIO also spent over 6 billion yuan in R&D. Both companies’ management teams revealed that they plan to maintain quarterly R&D investments of around 3 billion yuan.

It is noteworthy that in the first half of the year, R&D investments from companies like BYD, Geely, Changan, and Seres exceeded their net profits.

Since 2011, BYD’s investment in R&D has surpassed the company’s net profits in 13 out of the past 14 years, sometimes reaching several times the amount of net profit in the same period. To date, BYD’s cumulative R&D investment has approached 150 billion yuan.

Substantial investments have enabled automotive companies to develop independent R&D capabilities.

Currently, BYD employs over 100,000 R&D personnel, making it the carmaker with the largest R&D workforce globally. It has filed more than 48,000 patents and has over 30,000 patents granted.

In the first half of this year, Seres saw a rapid increase in its patent applications and approvals. It filed 1,812 patent applications, including 1,313 invention patents and 300 utility model patents.

Chinese automotive brands are constantly making technological breakthroughs. For instance, BYD’s e-platform 3.0is the world’s first intelligent control platform that features a function that integrates and controls independent drive of three motors and rear-wheel steering technology. It combines the advantages of BYD’s fifth-generation DM (dual mode) technology and the e-platform 3.0 Evo, enhancing driving experience for users.

Through technological innovation, automotive companies have gained unique competitive advantages. BYD’s Blade Battery marks a significant innovation in the new energy vehicle sector, known for its high safety, high energy density, and long cycle life. Seres’ superrange-extender system achieves thermal efficiency of 45 percent and a power-to-fuel conversion efficiency of 3.65 kilowatt-hours per liter. In the first quarter of this year, Seres’ range-extenders maintained the highest industry adoption rate, and the company has reached cooperation agreements with 12 partners.

The pace of new product launches has also been accelerating. This year, companies like Seres and Changan have introduced multiple new energy products to meet the diverse needs of consumers.

A recent report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a think tank based in Washington, D.C., revealed that Chinese electric vehicle companies are 30 percent faster than automakers from other countries in developing and launching new models.

Chinese EV makers offer models for sale for an average of 1.3 years before they are updated or refreshed, compared with 4.2 years for foreign brands, the report said.

Am executive of Seres said that in the context of increasingly fierce competition in the global automotive industry, independent R&D is a key way for Chinese brands to secure core competitiveness.

Driving industry innovation through technological advancement is particularly important, especially by leveraging disruptive and cutting-edge technologies to guide the industry toward high-end, intelligent, and green development, the executive added.

An expert said that the emphasis Chinese automakers place on R&D reflects a trend of consumption upgrading in the Chinese automotive market. Consumers are increasingly inclined to choose cost-effective and technologically advanced products manufactured by Chinese carmakers.

In the future, Chinese automotive companies will continue to strengthen their R&D efforts. Currently, BYD’s intelligent driving development team comprises nearly 5,000 engineers, and the company plans to invest 100 billion yuan in smart technologies, including generative AI and large model.

By continually enhancing R&D and innovative technologies, Chinese automakers are driving the entire industry toward greater efficiency, environmental sustainability, and intelligence, while also contributing to the sustainable development of the global automotive industry.

By Qiang Yuwen, People’s Daily

Yunmeng county in central China’s Hubei province is leveraging its rich historical and cultural resources to boost the development of cultural tourism.

The local authorities have explored a new path to drive cultural tourism with cultural heritage, with concrete measures such as establishing a research station for cultural relic protection, promoting innovations in preserving and carrying forward traditional arts like shadow puppetry, and developing cultural tourism projects.

Although Yunmeng county is the smallest county in Hubei province, it is home to over 5,000 pieces of cultural relics, including those recognized as Chinese national treasures.

At the end of 1975, 12 tombs dating from the late Warring StatesPeriod (475 B.C.-221 B.C.)to the Qin Dynasty (221 B.C. – 207 B.C.)were unexpectedly unearthed during the excavation of a water channel in Shuihudi, Yunmeng county.

In Tomb No. 11, several piles of bamboo slips caught the attention of archaeologists, who then meticulously collected, numbered, and cleaned over 1,000 bamboo slips from the tomb.

Soon after, experts identified these bamboo slips as historical records of the period when the seven states during the Warring States Period were unified under the Qin Dynasty, meticulously recorded by an official named Xi in over 40,000 neatly written Qin characters.

A major part of the records, in particular, is eighteen categories of Qin laws, which is considered the earliest and most complete legal code discovered in China to date, indicating that over 2,200 years ago, ancient China’s legal system had already been systematically established.

So far,a total of 36 Chinese national first-class cultural relics have been unearthed in Yunmeng, making it a favored destination for archaeologists.

In addition to thebamboo slips, the other cultural relics unearthed in the county include numerous precious woodcarvings, wooden lacquerware, and two family letters inscribed on wooden tablets, which were written by brothers Heifu and Jing to their brother in “Zhong” during the end of the Warring States Period, believed to be the world’s oldest family letter.

The Yunmeng County Museumhouses over 5,000 pieces of cultural relics, including 18 Chinese national first-class artifacts, making it a prominent one among county-level museums in China.

The raw lacquer for wooden lacquerware is highly valuable, involving intricate crafting processes. The large quantity of lacquerware unearthed in Yunmeng county attests to its past prosperity.

Li Lan, a researcher with the Hubei Provincial Museum, has been designated to dehydrate and reinforcethe newly unearthed lacquerware, as well as mending anyexisting damages.

Thetask is extremely complex.The dehydration process alone takes at least one to two years, and for larger pieces in better condition, it may even take over five years.

Previously, the Yunmeng County Museum, due to inadequate facilities, had to transport restoration-requiredartifacts to cities like Wuhan and Jingzhou in Hubei province.

The long-distance journey risked inflicting damage on the cultural relics, with even a slight mishap possibly causing significant harm.

The establishment of the Yunmeng workstation, a major research center for the protection of unearthed lacquerwareunder China’sNational Cultural Heritage Administration, has notably improved the conservation and restoration efforts in Yunmeng county.

Now, Li spends much of her time training local technicians in artifact restoration techniques.

To better preserve and inherit traditional culture, Yunmeng has consistently worked on innovatingboth the methods and content of cultural presentation.

Inspired by the story of the Qin Dynasty official Xi, Li Shenghua, president of the sports association of a residential community in Chengguan township, Yunmeng county, has led the local dance team in creating a show named “ink dance of Qin bamboo slips.”

In the performance, dancers dressed in traditional Chinese attire hold bamboo slips and use water sleeves to imitate the scene of historians recording events on bamboo slips with a brush.

The show won an award at a municipal-level competition during its first performance, and the team was even invited to perform it overseas.

In ashadow play theater in Chengguan township of Yunmeng county, innovative shadow puppet shows are staged tobring the audience closer to China’s history and cultural heritage.

One of the shadow puppet shows,created based on eighteen categories of Qin laws, is particularly popular.

In the show, an official in charge of law enforcement earnestly persuades his father not to burn straw, and brings the “village bully” harming the ecological environment to justice, eliciting frequent laughter from the audience with witty lines.

The show reveals to the audience that the culture contained in the Qin bamboo slips, spanning thousands of years, remains relevant tothe daily lives of people today.

Out of a passion for the arts and a desire to preserve culture through shadow puppetry, Liu Junming, a member of the Yunmeng county committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, has teamed up with localintangible cultural heritage inheritor Fang Dingmin and shadow puppet artist Qin Ligang to create a shadow puppet skit called “play within a play about Qin law.”

QinLigang is a Chinese national-level inheritor of Yunmeng shadow puppetrydedicated to the innovative development of this traditional art form.

Not confined to fixed music scores, Qin excels at incorporating current events into his performances.

“We must not only learn the old plays but also create new ones that capture the attention of young people,” Qin said.

The protection of traditional arts is like a rescue mission against “forgetting”, according to Qin, who noted that the more novel and relatable the art, the more likely it is able to impress the audience.

“Only by being remembered can it be passed down through generations,”he said.

A few years ago, Qin took on a “steel apprentice” – an intelligent robot equipped with sensors all over its body.

In 2017, Qin and the robot performed the classic play “Wu Song Fights the Tiger”in the Palace Museum in Beijing. During the performance, the robot led a shadow puppet tiger with its mechanical hand, executing lifelike movements programmed into it, capturing the attention of young audience.

“With the combination of artificial intelligence and our innovation, we won’t have to worry about traditional craftsmanship being lost,” Qin remarked.

Extracting unique cultural traits from its historical heritage, Yunmeng is exploring better ways to coordinate the relationships between cultural relic preservation, tourism, and commercial operations.

In recent years, the county has established an intangible cultural heritage exhibition hall,built a Qin bamboo slip memorial park, and improved its libraries and cultural centers, earning the title of the “hometown of folk culture and arts in Hubei province.”

Delving into its profound cultural heritage, this thousand-year-old small county is now radiating new charm.

By Tian Doudou, Li Xia, Fan Haotian, People’s Daily

In Baishuitang village in Babao township, Songzi city, central China’s Hubei province, a river runs through the community, with well-maintained pathways and green belts stretching along both sides, creating a picturesque rural scene with golden wheat fields in the distance.

“In the past, wastewater was discharged directly into the river, causing an unbearable smell in summer,”said Li Zhaoyu, an official with the village, as he patrolled along the riverbank with a straw hat on his head.

Every 30 meters along the way, there is a sewer inspection manhole. He occasionally lifted the cover to check if the drainage at the bottom was clear.

Arriving at a sewage treatment facility, he opened the equipment control box to ensure that everything was running smoothly.

In 2022, Baishuitang village successfully establishedsewage treatment facilities, linking all household wastewater to an underground pipeline network for centralized treatment, said Li.

The treated water can be reused for irrigation in farmland, achieving cyclic utilization, he added.

With the implementation of sewage interception, dredging, and water replacement, the river’s water quality has seen a notable improvement.creating a clear and clean environment that offers villagers a good place to relax and take a walk.

Li has been given the responsibility of managing and maintaining the sewage treatment facilities by the local villagers’ committee, inspecting and patrolling the equipment on a regular basis.

“With centralized sewage treatment facilities, every household in our village has removed old-fashioned septic tanks, methane-generating pits, and abandoned pigsties. They are using clean and environmentally friendly toilets, which further improves the village environment,” said a villager named Shi Wenqin.

The changes in Baishuitang village mirrors Hubei’s efforts to comprehensively promote rural revitalization.

In recent years, Hubei haspicked up its pace increating alivable, business-friendly, harmonious, and beautiful rural environment,taking a range of measures such as enhancing the layout of townships and villages, pursuing the coordinated development of rural infrastructure and public service systems, and improving the living environmentin rural areas.

In Liuxiao village, Louhe township, Xiantao city, Hubei province, villagers have transformed the idle land around their houses into small courtyards, using old bricks and tiles that were leftover from dismantling activities.

After removing old sheds, they built fences and planted flowers, fruit trees, and medicinal herbs, turning the idle land into nice gardens and orchards.

“In our rural development, we place great emphasis on formulating plans. While building the villages, we avoided large-scale demolition and construction, used local materials, and customized our approaches to fit the specific needs of every household. Now we have accomplished the planning for 106 villages,” said an official with the bureau of agriculture and rural affairs of Xiantao city.

Xiantao city has encouraged residents to plant fruit trees, vegetables,flowers, and other plantsaround their housesto develop small-scale and quick-yielding courtyard economy, which not only beautified the environment but also increased villagers’ income, the official explained.

Hubei aims toensure basic access to sanitary toilets throughout the provinceby completing the construction and renovation of environmentally safe sanitary toilets for the identified 2.48 million households by 2025.

It also plans to have an additional 4,600 administrative villages in the province undergo simultaneous upgrades in rural sewage treatment and toilet facilities, thereby leading to a significant transformation of the living environment in rural areas from “clean, tidy, and orderly” to “tidy, beautiful, and livable.”

In addition to the beautiful living environment, Hubei has also achieved notable improvement in its capabilities of providing basic public services.

Currently, Hubei is accelerating the building of rural elderly care service systems, developing rural mutual-assistance elderly care facilities such as activity centers and elderly care institutionsaccording to local conditions.

The province plans to increase the proportion of nursing beds incounty-level elderly care institutions to over 60 percent and the proportion of such beds operated by private business entities to over 50 percent by 2025.

In 2019, a man named Wu Youyuantransformed several farmhouses into an elderly care center in his hometown, namely Maoci village in Shuangxiqiao township, Xian’an district, Xianning city, Hubei province, with the support of the local government.

Now, there are over 30 elderly residents living here.

“I moved here a few years ago. There are people cooking and doing laundry for us, and friends to chat and entertain with, which brightened my mood a lot,”said Wu Chuanyao, a senior resident who is over 90 years old, while practicing drumming with a few other elderly people in the canteen of the care center.

In an effort to continuously strengthen the weak links of public services in rural areas, such as elderly care, medical services, and education, Hubei has channeled resources of basic public services to rural areas.

In recent years, the province has implemented innovative projects including one that introduces multiple college graduates into each villageto deliver public services, allowing the elderly to live in comfort and the young to pursue their careers.

By the end of 2022, Hubei had equipped villages with 9,128 doctors with college degree through targeted training and social recruitment.

Itplans toensure that each village has at least one doctor who has received higher education by 2025.

In the clinic of Pengbei village, Tingsiqiao township, Xian’an district, doctor Chen Shi was examining the health condition of a senior resident. As one of the college graduates returning to hometowns at the call of the local government, she secured a position as a village doctor in her hometown in 2017.

“After the renovation and upgrading of the clinic, the working environment and hardware conditions have improved a lot. We can handle common illnesses here, and for serious cases, we promptly refer them to higher-level hospitals,” Chen said.