These are grid scale installations in a desert with few clouds. It's possible they have a capacity factor over 30%.

China's deserts are reasonably far north (latitudes of 30+ degrees), so I doubt they get a capacity factor that high

Solar panels don’t like sands. It flies everywhere and the deposit partially shades the pane. You have to clean them to get back to peak efficiency. That’s why solar panels farm in desert are so complicated to run and why you don’t see more of them.

There is a huge difference between a scrub desert and sand dune one. Xinjiang and Gansu is more scrub than sand, the Gobi is where all the dust comes from.

Several of the largest solar plants in the world are in deserts.

Edit: I think that all of the top 5 largest are in deserts. Maybe more.

Yes, because there is a lot of space there and the sun shines a lot. But they are not more efficient that installation outside of deserts which was the claim made in the comment I was replying to.

Maybe not more efficient, but there’s usually more solar resource in the desert, and the net is usually more electricity produced.

See the executive summary linked at the bottom of this page: https://emp.lbl.gov/publications/utility-scale-solar-2023-ed....