How solar panels helped one Chinese farmer escape extreme poverty

By Al Jazeera English

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China says it has lifted nearly 100 million rural people out of extreme poverty over the past decade, through new roads, jobs, subsidies and relocation. In some communities, clean energy also played a role. In Jinzhai County, Anhui, once one of China's poorest areas, farmer Chen Zheshen survived on corn and his son's income until his son's sudden death plunged him into extreme poverty, which Beijing defines as earning less than $512 a year and being unable to afford necessities. In 2014, Chen joined a pilot project to install solar panels, funded partly by the government and loans. His now paid-off panels generate more than $400 a year. The scheme later expanded to over four million poor households nationwide. The World Bank estimated in 2024 that 15 percent of China's population lives on less than $8.30 a day, its threshold for upper-middle-income economies. Local officials say they keep monitoring families at risk of falling back into poverty. Al Jazeera's Katrina Yu reports from

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