In a bold move that signals the next chapter in the global energy transition, China is turning its back on the coal legacy that once powered its economic rise. On October 25, 2025, local authorities in Peixian, Xuzhou, announced the transformation of decommissioned coal mining areas into sprawling renewable energy hubs. According to Colin Smith, reporting for TrendHunter, these sites—once barren scars on the landscape—are now dotted with massive photovoltaic (PV) arrays and wind farms, all linked by newly built grid infrastructure. The goal? To convert these former industrial wastelands into engines of clean electricity generation and, perhaps just as importantly, new centers of economic activity.
This isn’t just a story of solar panels and turbines rising where coal once reigned. It’s a tale of communities adapting, policy objectives aligning, and technology accelerating the pace of change. The projects combine land rehabilitation with energy development, leveraging existing transmission corridors and local workforce retraining programs. This approach, officials say, is helping to speed up construction and rapidly connect new renewable generation to regional power grids.
The initiative is ambitious. By transforming legacy fossil-fuel sites into contributors to the clean-energy transition, China aims to reduce its dependence on coal, lower carbon emissions, and sustain local employment. Utility-scale renewables and distributed generation—supported by energy storage solutions—are at the heart of the plan. And the benefits aren’t just environmental. Local authorities and developers report improved land use, burgeoning tourism on rehabilitated sites, and diversified income streams for communities that once relied solely on coal.
"We are seeing the potential for these reclaimed lands to become not just sources of clean energy, but also hubs for economic redevelopment and even tourism," one local developer told TrendHunter. This sentiment is echoed by provincial and national policymakers, who see these projects as aligning perfectly with China’s aggressive targets for renewable capacity expansion.
But the transformation of coal mining lands is just one piece of a much larger puzzle. Across the globe, the rapid expansion of renewables is being supercharged by digital tools that make the design and construction of solar and battery projects faster, smarter, and more profitable. On the very same day as China’s announcement, RatedPower—a leading software provider for PV plant and battery energy storage system (BESS) design—hosted a webinar showcasing its cutting-edge solutions for developers and contractors.
The event, led by Emil Trepin, Account Executive at RatedPower, opened with a frank discussion of the main hurdles facing solar and BESS projects, particularly in the Balkans but also worldwide. The list is familiar to anyone in the industry: lack of collaboration between teams, difficulty attracting investors for shovel-ready projects, insufficient permitting documentation, endless manual calculations, and the risk of poor decision-making in feasibility studies.
RatedPower’s answer is a cloud-based software platform that, according to the webinar, can reduce design and engineering time by up to 90% and boost project profitability by about 20%. That’s not just a marginal improvement—it’s a game-changer. The platform creates simulations of PV plants, BESS, and hybrid facilities, allowing users to assess costs, performance, and profitability under a range of scenarios. It spits out over 400 pages of ready-to-use documents, including bills of quantities, single-line diagrams, and business plans.
During a live demonstration, Matteo Menazzi, Technical Advisor at RatedPower, walked attendees through the process. Users begin by selecting a location on the map, factoring in restrictions like roads, forests, and archaeological sites. Then they add PV arrays, BESS, and other equipment—either from a pre-filled database or by uploading their own specs. The software simulates the project in seconds, making it easy to test different modules or layouts and compare the results.
"The ability to adapt configurations to the terrain slope, estimate the scope and cost of earthworks, and customize grid connection parameters—these are features that save our clients enormous amounts of time and money," Menazzi explained. The platform even estimates substation size, electrical losses, and necessary cable lengths, while calculating how much electricity can be produced and injected into the grid.
All of this is backed by robust financial modeling. The software uses standard values from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to estimate project costs, but users can fully customize the inputs based on actual equipment prices or local conditions. The end result is a detailed, data-driven business case that can help secure investment and streamline the permitting process.
One of the most compelling aspects of RatedPower’s tool is its flexibility. Any design can be edited—elements moved, added, or removed—and all inputs can be saved as templates for future projects. When it comes to battery storage, users can select power conversion systems and battery containers, define the number and layout of BESS blocks, and tweak operational parameters for maximum profitability. The software even recommends the most lucrative times to sell electricity, based on day-ahead market prices or custom user data.
RatedPower’s expansion into the Balkans reflects the region’s status as one of Europe’s fastest-growing markets for renewables. Energy transition efforts, grid modernization, investment momentum, and strong state support are all fueling this growth. The company’s software, as highlighted in the webinar, is designed to address the unique challenges of the region—facilitating collaboration, improving documentation, and slashing the time required for manual calculations.
As the clean energy revolution gathers pace, the combination of large-scale infrastructure projects and smart digital tools is proving to be a powerful catalyst. In China, the transformation of coal mining lands into renewable energy hubs is breathing new life into communities and landscapes once defined by fossil fuels. Across Europe and beyond, platforms like RatedPower are making it easier and more profitable than ever to design, build, and operate solar and battery projects.
What ties these stories together is a sense of urgency—and possibility. The stakes are high, but so is the potential for positive change. As one local official in Xuzhou put it, "We are not just cleaning up the past. We are building the future." For communities, developers, and policymakers alike, that future is looking a little brighter—and a lot greener—every day.
