ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on a solar city project in Shigatse, a city located within the historical Tsang Province of Tibet. Solar thermal has contributed little for space heating in China. Urban sustainability is the grand pursuit of any development project in the age of climate change. The intuitive benefits of solar cities include, first, the ability to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, which has significant negative environmental impacts. Second, it offers energy security by providing an alternative source of energy at high production. Moreover, solar energy is a complementary process that supports other low-carbon technologies such as solar power ground source heat pumps. In China, there is no specific law geared towards solar cities as there is for eco-cities. China’s solar resource is divided into four regions based on the richness of the solar resource. Shigatse, a city in the southwest of China, has a natural advantage in developing the solar energy industry.
