Main content

Checking out the solar hotel

How China’s “sun king” dreamed of cities built of solar panels

Could we build cities using solar panels instead of walls? That’s the dream that Huang Ming, a wealthy entrepreneur in China’s Shandong province, has had since the 1980s. He’s become known as the ‘Sun King’ after building a vast solar park, including a showcase hotel, to prove a new kind of solar architecture is possible. So why hasn’t it caught on? We check into a room in the solar hotel and examine the vision and sometimes unfulfilled dreams of solar architecture in China.
Plus, why do bins in Copenhagen have shelves built into them? Clue: it helps the city’s poorest people.

Presenter: Mukul Devichand
Reporters: Emma Wilson and Harriet Noble

(Image: Huang Ming and his solar hotel, Credit: ѿý)

Release date:

Available now

23 minutes

People fixing the world on YouTube

Watch stories of people changing their world on the World Service English YouTube channel

Podcast