Delingha 350-MW CSP Plant Tops Out All Three 199-Meter Towers

• All three 199-meter receiver towers at a 350-MW tower CSP plant in Delingha, Qinghai, topped out on Oct. 26.
• A unit of Hong Kong-listed Hengxin Technology owns the plant, which will store heat in molten salt for 14 hours.
• Work moves to the power building and storage system; Hengxin targets grid connection in December 2027.

All three receiver towers at a 350-megawatt concentrated solar power (CSP) plant in Delingha, in China's Qinghai province, topped out on Oct. 26. Each reached 199 meters, the city's Development and Reform Commission said on Oct. 28.

Crews began pouring the towers on June 6 and finished all three together. The plant will store heat in molten salt for 14 hours. The commission calls it the world's largest tower CSP project under construction by both capacity and storage. Cosin Solar's Golmud plant, a separate Qinghai project, matches it on both counts. Two of its three towers topped out in October.

The project company is Qinghai Zhongkong Solar Power Co., an indirect subsidiary of Hong Kong-listed Hengxin Technology. In June it signed CNY 4.73 billion ($704 million) of contracts, tax included, with two GCL Group companies, a Hengxin filing shows. GCL Green Energy System Technology holds the site-works and installation contracts. Lvyuan Xinneng Technology (Suzhou) supplies equipment from heliostats and receivers to molten salt. Cosin Solar holds a separate CNY 120 million construction consulting contract.

The three towers will feed one 350-MW steam turbine. Each has its own 1.05 million square meters of heliostats and a 520-MW thermal receiver, according to Hengxin's December 2025 filing. Construction began that month.

The Delingha plant in numbers

• 4,900 MWh from a full 14-hour charge at the turbine's 350-MW nameplate rating (list.solar calculation).
• 3.15 million square meters of heliostat mirrors.
• CNY 5.567 billion ($829 million) of estimated total investment, or about CNY 15.9 ($2.37) per watt (list.solar calculation).
• 985 GWh of expected yearly output, a capacity factor of about 32% (list.solar calculation).
• 69% growth in Qinghai's 510-MW CSP fleet at end-2025 from this plant alone, per China Solar Thermal Alliance data (list.solar calculation).
• 15 GW is roughly the national CSP target for 2030, 8.6 times China's 1,738.2 MW at end-2025 (list.solar calculation).

Hengxin's group already owns 50-MW and 10-MW CSP plants in Delingha. The city has 42 grid-connected new-energy projects. It has also drawn 10 equipment factory projects, including one by Cosin Solar. Once built, they will make 100,000 collector tubes and 4 million square meters of trough mirrors a year. Their yearly output would be worth about CNY 1 billion ($149 million), the commission said.

Work on the main power building and the heat storage and exchange systems continues. Hengxin targets grid connection in December 2027.