Luke Johnston, a British expat currently living in Urumqi, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, is documenting how the city enjoys the fruits of China's green energy boom over the past few years.
In his vlog, Johnston took on a tour of his new hometown Urumqi, where green energy powers everything from buses to neighborhoods.
Riding on the city's Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, exploring an EV charge station and visiting a rooftop solar panel station, he showcased the detailed changes he noticed in his daily life.
Entering a BRT station by simply scanning a QR code on his phone, Johnston first of all explained how clean energy affects the daily lives with Urumqi's public transport system.
"Two RMB, which is about 30 U.S. cents, it's extremely affordable and convenient. And you have these special bus lanes for the BRT. This is a clean energy bus, so they have the green license plates. Now [in] Urumqi, two thirds of the bus fleet are new energy buses. So that is what Xinjiang is really trying to implement now. And this you can see they have these USB ports in a lot of these bus stops and there's also one of these as well that's a wireless and place your phone on to charge it as well," he explained.
According to Johnston, there were not as many as electric vehicles like there were in Shanghai and Beijing and the other cities of China five years ago when he first arrived in Xinjiang.
It was because the technology for the batteries back then were just not as advanced as they are now, and they wouldn't be able to withstand the harsh cold winters of Xinjiang, especially because the cities are so far apart from each other, the range wouldn't be able to last.
As the EV technology has improved over the years, people can now find more infrastructure all around Urumqi, which would not have existed two years ago, said Johnston.
"So this is a super charger area. Okay, so it just says that, and you have the 250 kilowatt one, you have the 600 kilowatt one and all these are Chinese [electric] vehicles. Okay, so the technology on these Chinese cars is just incredible and they're able to withstand the harsh winters and travel, and their ranges are now absolutely brilliant even in the winters," he said.
Johnston pointed out that Xinjiang has a very unique geographical location which is extremely large. It's a sparsely populated place, so there are many solar farms and wind turbines built across the region to help power the energy like for the data centers of many AI companies.
Arriving at a building, the British expat explained that like many others, it might look nothing unusual but the building got solar panels installed on its top over the last few years, another example how the city integrate green transition in its urban planning.
"But just there you can get a little glimpse of the solar panels. They are covering this with 2,600 square meters of them and that has 543 kilowatts of energy capacity which is just fascinating because you just take an existing building like this and just under past two or three years, they have started to put loads of these solar panels on top of these buildings and that really does energize the city with clean, green energy," said the vlogger.
As someone who has closely followed China's green transition throughout his five years in Xinjiang, Johnston is sending a clear message that China's modernization program translates into real-world upgrades that benefit not only local people but people everywhere.
British vlogger witnesses how Xinjiang enjoys fruits of China's green energy boom
British vlogger witnesses how Xinjiang enjoys fruits of China's green energy boom
