Cosin Solar Tops Out Two 199-Meter Towers at 350-MW Golmud CSP Plant

• Cosin Solar topped out the 199-meter concrete shafts of two of three receiver towers at its 350-MW tower CSP plant in Golmud, Qinghai.
• The plant stores heat for 14 hours and would add about 20% to China's end-2025 CSP fleet of 1,738.2 MW.
• The third tower has reached 180 meters; Golmud's city government expects grid connection in September 2027.

Cosin Solar has topped out the concrete shafts of two 199-meter receiver towers at its 350-megawatt concentrated solar power (CSP) plant in Golmud, Qinghai. The third tower has reached 180 meters, the company said on Oct. 20.

The plant feeds heat from three receiver towers to a single steam turbine and stores it in molten salt for 14 hours. Cosin calls it the world's largest single-unit CSP project. It manages the build, designs the plant outside the conventional island and supplies the core solar equipment.

Work began on Oct. 16, 2025. Heliostats are being assembled, four storage tanks are going up and the main power building has reached its third of five floors. Bluestar (Beijing) Chemical Machinery Co. shipped one receiver from its plant in Liaocheng, Shandong, in early October, according to the China Solar Thermal Alliance (CSTA).

PowerChina's Shandong Electric Power Construction No. 1 is the construction contractor. It names Qinghai Yichu Solar Power Generation Co. as the project company. CGN New Energy is developing a separate three-tower, 350-MW CSP plant in the same Golmud park.

The Golmud plant in numbers

• 230 meters is the centre height of the receivers that will top the towers.
• 14 hours of molten-salt storage, or about 4,900 MWh of turbine output from a full charge (list.solar calculation).
• 3.3 million square meters of heliostat mirror area.
• CNY 5.435 billion ($809 million) total investment, or about CNY 15.5 ($2.31) per watt (list.solar calculation).
• 964 GWh of expected yearly output, a capacity factor of about 31% (list.solar calculation).
• CNY 0.55 ($0.082) per kWh, tax included, is the mechanism price set for the plant once it runs.
• 20% added by this plant alone to China's end-2025 CSP fleet of 1,738.2 MW (list.solar calculation).

China had 27 CSP plants at end-2025, and Qinghai held 510 MW of the national total, CSTA data show. In October, Sichuan's first tower CSP plant, a 100-MW unit, won environmental approval.

Cosin will next install the receivers and heliostats and build the storage and heat-exchange systems. More than 50,000 heliostats will be in place by the end of 2026, the Golmud city government said in September. It expects the plant to connect to the grid in September 2027.