The total installed capacity of operational PV systems in China topped 165 GW at the end of September, according to a recent report from PV Info Link. That means the 2020 target of 105 GW originally conceived in the 13th five-year plan, has already been exceeded by more than 50%.
According to PV Info Link analysts, China’s National Energy Agency NEA is now planning to revise up the 2020 target for solar energy deployment to at least 210 GW. The analysts claim the target may even be raised to between 250 GW and 270 GW, to support the Chinese solar module industry.
The country's energy institutes have been tasked to carry out an assessment of the effects of a planned adjustment of the target.
If it is raised to only 210 GW, PV Info Link analysts say there would be room for only 20-25 GW of additional PV capacity per year from next year to 2020, which would not give much of a lift to local demand. An increase of at least 250 GW, however, would mean the deployment of more than 40 GW of solar annually.
China's PV industry association, the CPIA, reported last week on a slowdown of demand in China, as a consequence of policy changes introduced by the government in late May.
According to the CPIA, newly installed PV capacity of around 40 GW is expected to be grid-connected in China this year. That would mean China remaining the world’s largest solar market, albeit with deployment 25% lower than that seen in 2017. The association believes around 50% of the new capacity will come from large-scale solar plants, with the remaining share expected from smaller, decentralized systems.
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Since China suffers from the worst air pollution in the world, they have the greatest incentive to replace coal-fired power plants with solar-generated electricity.
Another factor to consider is the viability of the solar project including solar resources of the area and grid connection.
Given the facts and damage burning coal can do to health and the environment there is an idiot who still advocate jobs for miner to keep polluting. There are plenty of renewable, where are we? We are used to American being the most progressive country and the over lawyer-ing and party politics instead of a common vision yielded our dominance. Giving up the most precious to win the pettiest. Sad… … …
Even crazier [that some idiots still advocate for coal & fossils in the face of the dire science] is that the transition to renewables represents a $10 trillion economic OPPORTUNITY! The future of solar, wind, efficiency, storage, intelligence and the variety of other renewables is incredibly bright!
The inverse of solar’s capacity factor means that they’re still going to get a whopping averaged out 40 GW or so! I wonder if they are going to have much cheaper batteries, soon?
330 is the correct number, based on natural growth.
Even crazier [that some idiots still advocate for coal & fossils in the face of the dire science] is that the transition to renewables represents a $10 trillion economic OPPORTUNITY! The future of solar, wind, efficiency, storage, intelligence and the variety of other renewables is incredibly bright!
China has to grow its solar capacity, even more, because the demand for electricity increases every month. Even considering the fast growth, they are not winning the battle. At least for now. They have been for too many years building coal plants. They lost more than 10 years, not building renewable energy plants. That’s a lot of time. Now they are doing the right job. But more time is needed. An example for the US, and Latine America, who need to highly increase the renewable energies.