In Gangcha County, Haibei Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, northwest China’s Qinghai Province, on a plateau 3,300 meters above sea level, winters are long and bitterly cold. For local Tibetan residents, the greatest obstacle to replacing traditional dry latrines with flush toilets has always been the temperature — the freezing cold causes water pipes to ice up and destroys facilities.
The Panbao new energy green toilet pilot project in Shaliuhe Town, Gangcha County
This challenge has recently found a solution.
A special cabin, named “The NICE Energy Cabin”, independently developed by CHN Energy’s National Institute of Clean-and-Low Carbon Energy (NICE), has been successfully put into operation in a local rural livelihood improvement project. Relying on new energy power generation and off-grid energy supply technology, the system has run continuously and stably for over 1,000 hours in the high-altitude environment.
Behind the project is an in-depth collaboration between the energy storage R&D team and officials dispatched to Qinghai by the Group’s Rural Revitalization Office. After five months of intensive effort, they comprehensively renovated the dry latrines around the NICE Energy Cabin. Now, local Tibetan residents can use warm and clean flush toilets, something that was virtually impossible in the past.
The NICE Energy Cabin integrates a solid thermal storage module and multi-energy fusion microgrid technology, purpose-built for extremely cold, high-altitude areas. During this year’s Spring Festival, the system withstood extreme weather tests including severe cold, wind and snow while maintaining stable operation. Since being commissioned, it has cut monthly electricity costs by 90 percent.
Moving forward, the R&D team will continue to optimize the system design based on operational data, enhance its cost-effectiveness and reliability, and develop a replicable and scalable modular solution. This will allow the NICE Energy Cabin to be deployed in more cold and remote regions, providing energy security for local livelihood infrastructure.
