A 2,200-square-meter 100 kilowatt solar power station built in 2014 has changed the lives of over 1,000 residents in Yaoqu village, a remote poverty-stricken village in North China's Shanxi province, where people's annual per capita income was only some 2,000 yuan ($279) in 2013. 

Since it was connected to the grid to generate electricity in January 2015, the solar park has generated electricity of over 600,000 kilowatt-hours and income of more than 500,000 yuan for the village, with sufficient sunshine of some 2,000 daylight hours annually on average. 

Officials said the village used all the income to support poor locals who were unable to work, help local farmers who were poor due to illness, physical disability, disasters and accidents, promote public welfare undertakings and construct poverty-alleviation oriented industry projects. 

They said the positive changes in Yaoqu village is the epitome of progress in poverty alleviation in Shanxi province, which has built solar parks due to its location on the eastern part of the Loess Plateau where sunshine is sufficient.

In 2014, Shanxi was selected as one of pilot provinces for solar power-driven poverty alleviation by the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development, as well as the National Energy Administration.

So far, the total scale of Shanxi's solar power poverty alleviation projects completed and connected to the grid has reached 2.95 million kW.

By the end of 2019, the cumulative earnings from solar power poverty alleviation projects had reached 1.68 billion yuan, of which 1.37 billion yuan was delivered to villages, according to Zhang Jiancheng, deputy director of the Shanxi Poverty Alleviation and Development Office. 

"The income has benefited 6,077 poor villages and 368,500 poor households. These villages can add income of up to 400,000 yuan each year from photovoltaic-driven poverty alleviation projects," Zhang said.

This year, the income from photovoltaic-driven poverty alleviation projects in Shanxi is expected to reach 1.7 billion yuan, which will help 230,000 poor laborers increase per capita income of 5,000 yuan, officials added.