Construction officially began on the 200-megawatts offshore photovoltaic power plant in Lianyungang City, east China’s Jiangsu Province, on Sunday.

The project, the largest of its kind in China, is expected to save approximately 680,000 tonnes of coal equivalent every year and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 1.77 million tonnes.

The project is located near the Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant. It is divided into two parts: offshore and onshore. The offshore part consists of over 3.3 million photovoltaic modules forming 480 arrays, while the onshore part is a 400-megawatt-hour energy storage.

A company under the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) is expected to manage the power plant, whose onshore part will finish by late June.

This new photovoltaic project, combined with the nuclear plant, will form a large-scale comprehensive energy base with a total installed capacity of over 10 gigawatts. The project is expected to be set as an example of a nuclear-photovoltaic integrated clean energy base.