China has broken ground on a $7.7bn green energy project that will help power its capital Beijing.

The project in China’s northern Shanxi province will have 6GW of wind and solar capacity and 3.4GWh of energy storage, according to a report in Shanxi Daily.

State-owned Jinneng Holding Group Co began work on the site on Friday.

The project is planned to connect to the grid by the end of next year and will power Beijing, the nearby city of Tianjin and Hebei province.It will be connected to those regions by the Datong-Tianjin ultra-high voltage power line.

The renewables complex is being built on an old coal mining site.

China in November signed a pact with the US to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030, a commitment that was later adopted at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai.

China is aiming to reach peak carbon emissions by 2030 on a path to hitting net zero by 2060.

The country was predicted by energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie to hit a record 230GW of wind and solar installations last year, more than double the number of US and European installations combined.

（Picture: Veer）