China Energy Construction Gezhouba Groupbroke ground on 27 June on a traffic-energy integration project alongside the Heng-QinExpressway at the Lingshan West Service Area in Qinzhou, Guangxi. The development is presented as the country’s first highway corridor to target net-zero carbon emissions across its complete operational lifecycle, and the inaugural large-scale, end-to-end zero-carbon freight route on the Western Land-Sea New Corridor, the logistics artery connecting southwestern China to Gulf of Tonkin seaports.
The energy system spans approximately 7.17 MWp of distributed photovoltaic capacity installed along the motorway, paired with a 3,200 kW / 7,524 kWh battery storage system and a smart microgrid designed to manage on-site self-consumption, surplus storage, and intelligent dispatch. Service areas along the corridor will also receive heavy-truck fast-charging stations, megawatt-class ultra-rapid chargers, and battery-swap facilities, targeting the limited green-refuelling options that have restricted electrification of long-haul freight on this route.
The project’s chief engineer, Gao Kang, is cited as saying that full lifecycle net-zero status will be secured by layering on-site solar generation with sequestration from forestry and mangrove carbon-sink programmes along the route, along with energy-efficiency upgrades to existing service-area buildings. Projected annual output stands at approximately 6.55 million kWh — displacing an estimated 40,000 tonnes of CO₂ per year — while total lifetime generation is expected to exceed 190 million kWh.
Carbon Market Context
- The corridor’s use of mangrove carbon sinks to offset residual operational emissions connects directly to active Chinese government research into coastal and marine carbon sequestration, illustrated by a 2025 Ministry of Ecology and Environment survey of the Huangyan Dao Blue Hole — the kind of blue-carbon study informing how coastal sink contributions may be quantified within national climate frameworks.
- China’s national climate position — articulated by Special Climate Envoy Xie Zhenhua at the UN Climate Action Summit and elaborated in subsequent bilateral discussions with EU counterparts — has consistently emphasised moving key infrastructure sectors beyond incremental emissions reduction toward structural net-zero outcomes, the benchmark this corridor is explicitly designed to meet across its full operational period.
Source
- 全国首创零碳高速走廊落地钦州，光伏储能配套实现全运营周期净零碳碳交易网 — 碳市场资讯, published 2026-06-30