The Hefei National High-tech Industry Development Zone was approved as a national collaborative innovation pilot for pollution prevention and carbon reduction in 2024. The zone's remarkable achievements in this sector were selected as model cases by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment.

The headquarters of Midea Group in the Hefei National High-tech Industry Development Zone. [Photo/WeChat ID: hefeigaoxinfabu]

The Midea Group's washing machine factory, located in the zone, has set up an AI platform for industrial energy consumption to achieve real-time visualization of carbon footprint throughout the production process. 

It is equipped with 22.83MW distributed photovoltaics and 6MWh energy storage systems. As a result of implementing the AI platform, its photovoltaic electricity utilization rate increased to 98%, and the total volume of annual carbon reduction reached 13,000 metric tons. In 2024, the factory was named as a Global Lighthouse factory by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

This model case demonstrates the zone's efforts to explore a new approach for preventing pollution and dropping carbon emissions relying on digital technologies such as big data and blockchain as well as innovative and integrated applications in fields like home appliances, automobiles, and equipment manufacturing.

The zone also developed a new model for cooperation among enterprises, R&D institutions, and local government. Various products were widely applied to comprehensive monitoring of the atmospheric environment, three-dimensional monitoring of industrial parks, pollution source analysis, pollution forecasting and warning, coordinated control of greenhouse gases and pollutants, and other use cases. 

At present, the zone has completed the formulation of clean production plans for key enterprises, aiming to save 59.21 million yuan ($8.15 million) in costs and cut carbon emissions by 35,000 metric tons each year.