From highland pastoral areas to the frontlines of energy production, CHN Energy's work across the Qinghai Plateau has been driven bya shared mission of responsibility and support. Since 2010, when it took on the task of supporting Qumarleb County and Gangcha County, two remote and high-altitude counties in Qinghai Province, northwestern China, CHN Energy has invested over 600 million yuan (approx. 86 million USD) in aid and implemented more than 200 key projects. An exploration that has evolved from addressing immediate needs to building a long-term foundation has taken root across this vast snowy plateau.
Safeguarding the ecological heart of the Tibetan Plateau
In Maduo Township, Qumarleb County, at an altitude of 4,500 meters, the wind in September is bitingly cold, yet Yiduo, a grassland monitor, feels warmth in his heart. When his phone screen lights up with a salary deposit message that brings a quiet sense of reassurance and steady income—a tangible reward made possible by the Group's active involvement in the ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River basin.
Qumarleb County lies at the core of the Three-River-Source National Park——a protected area that safeguards the headwaters of the Yangtze, Yellow and Lancing rivers. In 2018, the Group's public welfare foundation established a special ecological revitalization fund, and in Maduo Township—known as "the first township at the source of the Yellow River"—it selected 162 impoverished households as the first group of ecological rangers. Since then, each household has gained an additional fixed annual income of 21,600 yuan (approx. 3,100 USD). To date, the Group has invested more than 80 million yuan (approx. 11.4 million USD) in ecological protection, implementing grazing bans on 320,000 mu (approx. 21,344 hectares) of grassland and artificial grass planting on 1,500 mu (100 hectares). The trend of grassland degradation has been effectively curbed, water conservation capacity has significantly improved, and wildlife populations have increased year by year. This project was recognized as a Best Case in the 2023 United Nations Global Solicitation on Best Poverty Reduction Practices.
Building schools and brighter futures for highland children
On the vast grasslands of Qumarleb County, herders move seasonally with their livestock, and with county kindergartens far away, many preschool children are unable to receive early education. The officials assigned to the two counties made "addressing the challenges of providing centralized schooling in temote pastoral areas" a key priority, and after in-depth research, they found a solution.
Children from Gangcha County, Qinghai, attend class at the Xiunaocun Kindergarten
Since 2022, the Group has invested a total of 14 million yuan (approx. 2 million USD) to build 15 Sunshine Kindergartens across one town and five townships in Qumarleb County. The classrooms, converted from shipping containers, are covered with photovoltaic panels on their roofs, storing electricity during the day, and are equipped with heating, lighting, teaching devices and energy storage systems. Even in the depths of winter at minus 30°C, the classrooms remain warm and bright. These "movable smart castles" have completely broken the predicament of "kindergarten shortages and inadequatechildcarefacilities" in remote alpine pastoral areas, achieving seamless connection between preschool education and compulsory schooling.
The educational support landscape extends far beyond this. As the lead supporting unit for the two counties, Qinghai Company has built the Qumarleb County Nationality High School, a boarding primary school and four kindergartens in Gangcha County, benefiting 35,000 teachers and students, with a total investment of more than 96 million yuan (approx. 13.7 million USD). In early 2023, the Group's foundation also helped establish a youth football training center in Qumarleb County, promoting football across 13 primary and secondary schools, introducing professional coaching teams and improving training facilities, thus achieving a breakthrough in youth football education in the highland pastoral region. Over the past three years, 18 students have been admitted as football specialty students, and 17 female players have been enrolled by the Qinghai Provincial Sports School.
Bringing warmth to communities through practical projects
While strengthening the ecological barrier and consolidating the educational foundation, the Group has also launched a series of warm and practical projects to comprehensively address rural livelihood shortcomings and improve the quality of life for local residents. Since 2017, the Group has built a free public health center in Gangcha County, equipped with diverse fitness areas for combat sports, basketball, billiards and more, which has become an important venue for daily exercise and cultural activities, effectively enriching the spiritual and cultural life of the pastoral community.
In the area of basic livelihood support, the Group has innovatively implemented livelihood improvement projects for alpine regions. To tackle the problems of traditional highland toilets—easy freezing, difficult cleaning and water source contamination—the aid officials sent to Qinghai, leveraging the Group's proprietary NICE energy supply pod core technology, piloted a new-energy green toilet renovation project in Gangcha County. This integrated dry-to-wet toilet conversion with independent new-energy power supply, and the project's results were recognized by the government, which plans to promote it province-wide, creating a replicable and scalable rural construction solution for high-altitude areas.
The new-energy green toilet pilot project built by CHN Energy
In addition, the assistance teams have precisely addressed various daily challenges in pastoral areas, promoting clean-energy heating retrofits for remote teaching points to thoroughly improve the winter learning environment for highland students; implementing safe drinking water improvement projects by drilling deep wells and building water supply stations to ensure healthy water access for residents. At the same time, they have established an integrated online-plus-offline consumption assistance system, using dedicated e-commerce platforms, offline designated procurement and employee internal purchases, among other channels, to achieve over 50 million yuan (approx. 7.1 million USD) in consumption assistance for agricultural and livestock products during the 14th Five-Year Plan period.
From toilet renovations to water supply, the assigned cadres of CHN Energy have deeply immersed themselves in the plateau's frozen soil, measuring the people's needs with their own footsteps and resolving difficulties with concrete and effective measures. They are not only vanguards of rural revitalization but also beacons of warmth that illuminate the snowy plateau, bringing CHN Energy’s care to communities across the highland.
