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Cumulative installed PV capacity in gigawatts since 2007

China is the largest market in the world for both photovoltaics and solar thermal energy. China's photovoltaic industry began by making panels for satellites, and transitioned to the manufacture of domestic panels in the late 1990s.^[1] After substantial government incentives were introduced in 2011, China's solar power market grew dramatically: the country became the world's leading installer of photovoltaics in 2013. China surpassed Germany as the world's largest producer of photovoltaic energy in 2015,^[2][3] and became the first country to have over 100 GW of total installed photovoltaic capacity in 2017.^[4]

At the end of 2020, China's total installed photovoltaic capacity was 253 GW, accounting for one-third of the world's total installed photovoltaic capacity (760.4 GW).^[5] Most of China's solar power is generated within its western provinces and is transferred to other regions of the country. In 2011, China owned the largest solar power plant in the world at the time, the Huanghe Hydropower Golmud Solar Park, which had a photovoltaic capacity of 200 MW. In 2018, it held the record again with the Tengger Desert Solar Park with its photovoltaic capacity of 1.5 GW. China currently owns the second-largest solar plant in the world, the Huanghe Hydropower Hainan Solar Park, which has a capacity of 2.2 GW.^[6] In 2023, China completed the world's largest hydro-solar power plant in Sichuan, which utilises the consistency in hydropower production to offset the variability in solar power.^[7][8]

Solar power contributes to a small portion of China's total energy use, accounting for 3.5% of China's total energy capacity in 2020.^[9] Chinese President Xi Jinping announced at the 2020 Climate Ambition Summit that China plans to have 1,200 GW of combined solar and wind energy capacity by 2030.^[10]

Solar water heating is also extensively implemented, with a total installed capacity of 290 GWth at the end of 2014, representing about 70% of world's total installed solar thermal capacity.^[11][12]

The expansion of the solar sector in China has been criticized due to the large quantities of waste being produced and improperly disposed of from the production of photovoltaic cells.^[13] Criticism over large amounts of unused energy being produced has appeared along with criticism over the forced removal of native populations for development land and the usage of forced labor in the production of photovoltaic cells.^[14][15][16]

As of at least 2023, solar power is cheaper than coal-fired power in China.^[17]: 167 By the first quarter of 2024, the momentum continued with China installing 45.7 gigawatts of photovoltaic panels, a 34% increase from the previous year. This reflects ongoing growth, although the increase was less than the 154% surge seen in early 2023, showing some variability in expansion rates.^[18]

History

Photovoltaic research in China began in 1958 with the development of China's first piece of monocrystalline silicon. Research continued with the development of solar cells for space satellites in 1968. The Institute of Semiconductors of the Chinese Academy of Sciences led this research for a year, stopping after batteries failed to operate. Other research institutions continued the development and research of solar cells for Dongfanghong satellites. In 1975, domestic solar cell production began with factories in Ningbo and Kaifeng. These cells were produced in a similar fashion to the satellite cells of the past.^[1] Annual solar capacity installations were still low, as only 0.5 kW of photovoltaic capacity was installed. This increased to 8 kW in 1980, 70 kW in 1985, 500 kW in 1990, and 1550 kW in 1995.^[19]

China's Sixth Five-Year Plan (1981-1985) was the first to address government policy support for solar PV panel manufacturing.^[20]: 34 Policy support for solar panel manufacturing has been a part of every Five-Year Plan since.^[20]: 34

In the early 1990s, Tsinghua University scientists developed a new type of evacuated tube solar water heater design.^[21]: 409 These units became ubiquitous in rural China during the early 2000s. By 2014, China had more than 85 million solar water heaters, primarily operating in rural households.^[21]: 409

In 1998, demonstration projects for solar energy production began to appear, starting with a 3W polysilicon battery and applications for the energy. Yingli became one of the first producers of this new solar energy. However, annual capacity did not increase much until 2002 when a 10 MW solar cell production line was put into operation by Suntech Power.^[1] That year, a program aimed to install more solar and wind energy in Tibet, Xinjiang, Qinghai, Gansu, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, and Sichuan was introduced by the National Development and Planning Commission. This spurred solar cell production and annual installations skyrocketed from 3.3 MW in 2000 to 20.3 MW in 2002. Photovoltaic cell production expanded in the following years, with 140 MW manufactured in 2005. Only 5 MW of solar energy was installed in China that year, however, as most of the manufactured photovoltaic cells were sold to European countries, with Germany being the largest buyer. China's annual solar energy installations grew to 10 MW installed in 2006, increasing China's total installed solar energy capacity to 80 MW.^[19] Annual solar energy installations continued to grow, with 20 MW of capacity installed in 2007 and 40 MW installed in 2008.

In 2007, the National Development and Reform Commission planned to have China's solar capacity increase to 1,800 MW by 2020. However, according to Wang Zhongying, the head of the National Development and Reform Commission's renewable energy development, stated that China would far exceed this goal, predicting that at least 10 GW can be installed by 2020, with 20 GW of installed capacity within the realm of possibility. Despite these predictions, solar energy accounted for only a small fraction of China's total installed energy in 2008.^[22]

The global financial crisis of 2007-2008 prompted significant stimulus efforts by China to invigorate its then-struggling solar industry.^[20]: 34

In 2011, feed-in-tariffs for solar power projects completed before a certain deadline were introduced. These feed-in tariffs were extremely successful at expanding China's solar power sector, largely exceeding the Chinese government's expectations for growth.^[23] The Huanghe Hydropower Golmud Solar Park was also completed in 2011 in Golmud, a county-level city in Qinghai province.^[23][24] The solar park contains 200 MW of installed photovoltaic capacity and was the largest individual solar plant in the world on its completion.^[25] Other solar parks such as the 20 MW Qinghai Golmud Solar Park were also installed in Golmud, with 570 MW of capacity installed in total at the end of 2011.^[26]

The Chinese PV production system faced severe external shocks since 2010. A sharp recession in the global demand due to institutional alterations in the German market in 2010, followed by anti-dumping duties and anti-subsidy countervailing duties on Chinese PV products enforced in both USA and EU.^[27] Chinese PV manufacturers, which were already running at full capacity, faced a difficult situation in 2011 and 2012 with huge financial losses that led to the bankruptcy of some important companies, such as Suntech Power in 2013 which defaulted on $541 million of convertible bonds.^[27] To rescue the huge PV industry with its large labor market and assets, a comprehensive set of policies was introduced by the Chinese government mainly to stimulate the domestic market. Accordingly, the annual installed capacity in China experienced notable growth since 2011. This growth was mainly due to the construction of several PV power plants around the country.

In May 2011, the National People's Congress (NPC) revised the solar target again, setting 5 GW as an official minimum PV target for 2015, with a longer-term target of 20–30 GW by 2020.^[28] According to a 2012 forecast by the European Photovoltaic Industry Association, the total installed capacity was predicted to reach between 47 GW and 66 GW by 2017.^{[29]: p. 35}

In 2014, the National Development and Reform Commission increased the solar capacity target to 70 GW by 2017.^[30] The National Energy Administration also announced plans to install 100 GW of solar power along with other renewable energy sources and nuclear energy by 2020 in 2014.^[31] However, market analysts expected for 110 GW to be installed by 2018 and that by 2020, more solar energy could be installed than planned.^[32] In 2015, the solar capacity target was initially planned to be 15 GW but was increased in March 2015 by the National Energy Administration to 17.8 GW of installed solar capacity for the year.^[33] This target was increased again to 23.1 GW in October, a very ambitious goal considering that the annual solar energy installations for the entire world in 2010 were less than 20 GW.^[32] Despite these ambitious goals, China only 7.73 GW of solar energy in the first half of 2015.^[34] By the end of 2015, China installed 15.1 GW of solar energy, failing to meet both of the raised goals, but meeting the original goal.^[32] The plan for annual solar capacity for 2020 was also increased in October 2015 to 150 GW.^[35]

In 2016, China added 34.5 GW of solar energy.^[36] The first 105 GW solar capacity by 2020 goal set by Chinese authorities was met in July 2017. In the first nine months of 2017, China saw 43 GW of solar energy installed in the first nine months of the year and saw a total of 52.8 GW of solar energy installed for the entire year.^[4] 2017 is currently the year with the largest addition of solar energy capacity in China. China's total photovoltaic energy capacity at the end of 2017 was 130 GW, surpassing Germany as the world's largest producer of solar energy.^[37] In 2018, China saw a decrease in annual solar energy, dropping down to 44.4 GW. In 2019, annual solar energy installation further dropped to 30.1 GW, even lower than the installations made in 2016.^[38] This decline in growth is attributed to the Chinese government restructuring government incentives to start solar energy projects in May 2018. Despite this decline in growth, China remained the largest market for solar energy with 205 GW total installed capacity in 2019, which was almost as much as the total installed capacity in the European Union (132 GW) and the United States (76 GW) combined.^[39] However, from all of the total energy produced by China in 2019, only 3.9% of that energy was produced by solar energy. This was lower than the percent energy production from solar power of the European Union (4.9%) but greater than the percent share in the United States (2.8%).^[39]

In 2020, China saw an increase in annual solar energy installations with 48.4 GW of solar energy capacity being added, accounting for 3.5% of China's energy capacity that year. 2020 is currently the year with the second-largest addition of solar energy capacity in China's history. Combined with wind energy, almost 10% of China's energy came from non-hydroelectric renewable power in 2020.^[40] China's total photovoltaic energy capacity at the end of 2020 was 252.5 GW.^[9] China has stated that it aims to increase the energy share of solar and wind energy to 11% by the end of 2021. Renewable energy subsidies for 2021 for increased, with subsidies for solar power having increased more than subsidies for wind energy.^[40] The Huanghe Hydropower Hainan Solar Park was also completed in 2020 in Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai Province. The solar park has an installed capacity of 2.2 GW, making it the second-largest solar plant in the world as of 2021, behind the Bhadla Solar Park in India. The solar plant is connected to the world's first ultra-high voltage power line which gets all of its power from renewable energy and is capable of transferring power over 1000 km. The solar plant is planned to expand to a photovoltaic capacity of 10 GW.^[6][41]

At the Climate Ambition Summit in 2020, Xi Jinping announced that China planned to have 1,200 GW of solar and wind energy capacity by 2030.^[10]

Between first 6 months of 2022, China built nearly 31GW of new solar power capacity, which up 137% compared to a years before. It expected the full-year installations would hit a record high.^[42] China added a total of 87.41 GW of solar in 2022, up 62% from the year before.^[43]

Because solar works well as a distributed power source, recent Chinese policies have focused on increasing the prevalence of distributed solar energy and for developing systems so that electricity from solar energy can be used at its point of generation instead of transmitted over long distances.^[20]: 34

Solar resources

A July 2019 report found that local air pollution (black carbon and sulfur dioxide) has decreased the available solar energy that can be harnessed today by up to 15% compared to the 1960s.^[45]

Solar photovoltaics

Solar PV by province

A large part of the solar power capacity installed in China is in the form of large PV power plants in the west of the country, an area much less populated than the eastern part but with better solar resources and available land.

Solar PV by type

In 2018 23,300 MW of utility scale power plant installations were added bring the cumulative total in this sector to 123,730 MW of power. Distributed installations rose by almost as much during 2018 at 20,960 MW bringing the cumulative total in the sector to 51,250 MW by year end 2018. Off-grid solar was the smallest component in 2018 with just 360 MW cumulatively installed.

Manufacturers

China has been the world's largest manufacturer of solar panels since 2008 and, since 2011, has produced the majority of global photovoltaics on an annualized basis.^[62] Industry projections estimated that, by the end of 2017, China would have enough manufacturing capacity to produce 51 GW of PV modules per year, an amount over twice as large as 2010's global production of 24 GW.^[63][64]

The industry is dominated by several major manufacturers. They include CHINT Group Corporation, JA Solar Holdings, Jinniu Energy, Suntech Power, Yingli, China Sunergy and Hanwha SolarOne.^[65][66] Large debt challenges several manufacturers.^[67]

Concentrated solar power

Solar resource

China has large potential for concentrated solar power (CSP), especially in the south-western part of the country.^[68] The highest daily mean values of direct normal radiation are found in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and Sichuan Basin, at 9 kWh/m2. Most of northern and western China has daily average direct normal radiation over 5 kWh/m2, considered the limit for economical use of CSP.^[68] Practical limitations for deployment of CSP include mountainous terrain and distance from energy load centers, mostly concentrated in the east.^[68]

Public policy

The 12th five-year plan, for 2011 to 2015, called for the installation of 1,000 MW by 2015, and 3,000 MW of CSP plants by 2020. Zdroj:https://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=Zhejiang_solar_panel_plant_protest
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