China’s solar push has delivered a strange and very real side effect on the Tibetan Plateau. In a dry corner of Qinghai Province, where sand once dominated the land, grass now grows beneath rows of solar panels, and more than 20,000 sheep graze under the blue-black modules.

What began as a power project has become something broader, a test of whether clean energy infrastructure can also repair damaged land. The answer, at least in Talatan, is looking more promising than many expected, though experts still warn that not every desert can be fixed by simply planting panels.