HUAINAN, CHINA – JUNE 12: Chinese workers prepare panels that will be part of a large floating solar farm project being built by the Sungrow Power Supply Company on a lake caused by a collapsed and flooded coal mine on June 12, 2017 in Huainan, Anhui province, China. The floating solar field, billed as the largest in the world, is built over part of the collapsed Panji No.1 Coal Mine which was inundated more than ten years ago due to over-mining, a common occurrence in the world. Chinese coal core deep-well mining. When completed, the solar park will consist of more than 166,000 solar panels that convert sunlight into energy, and the site could potentially produce enough energy to power a city in Anhui Province, considered to be the one of the country’s coal centers. Local officials say they are planning more projects like this, marking a significant change in an area where long-term intensive coal mining has led to large areas of subsidence and environmental degradation. . However, the energy transition has its challenges, mainly competitive pressure from the well-established coal industry which has sometimes resulted in delays in connecting solar projects to the public grid. The Chinese government has announced it will spend more than US $ 360 billion on clean energy projects by 2020 to help lift the country out of fossil fuel dependence, and earlier this year Beijing canceled plans to build more than 100 coal-fired power plants in an effort to mitigate overcapacity and limit carbon emissions. China is already the largest producer of solar energy, but it also remains the largest emitter of greenhouse gases on the planet and accounts for about half of total global coal consumption. (Photo by Kevin Frayer / Getty Images), Photographer: Kevin Frayer / Getty Images AsiaPac