China has promised to further support its troubled solar energy sector as the government as the industry struggles with falling prices and a capacity glut.
Citing a statement by the State Council, China's cabinet, Reuters reported on Saturday that the countrys Ministry of Industry and Information Technology was taking measures to "promote the healthy development of the photovoltaic industry."
The State Council said the ministry was implementing a government directive approved in July that aimed to more than quadruple solar power capacity to 35 GW by 2015 in an effort to ease the overcapacity that continues to debilitate the domestic solar energy industry. The July directive also called for greater consolidation in the industry, new guidelines for mergers and acquisitions and the promotion of standardization.
The ministry is said to be pushing for more technological innovation, specifically in the area of decentralized, off-grid solar power installations, according to Reuters. The ministry is also supporting research and development in battery and storage technology.
Improved standardization has been a key issue for the ministry, which sees it as vital for successful competition in the industry.
China's solar industry experienced a recovery 2013, the State Council said, adding that total installed solar power capacity increased by around 8 GW, 6 GW of which generated by power plants and 2 GW by decentralized installations, according to preliminary estimates from the China Photovoltaic Industry Alliance.
In line with its push for greater standardization and efforts to rein in further PV production capacity in the country in order to reduce oversupply, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology published an updated list of 109 PV manufacturers that comply with manufacturing guidelines, including environmental conditions at factory sites, the amount of cells used in panels and minimum production capacity for polysilicon, ingot and wafer manufacturers.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.