China eyes further PV target increase in 13th five-year plan

Share

The 13th version of China’s five-year plan is currently under development, with the National Energy Administration (NEA) due to report its revised plan to the state council in August.

Early indications are that the NEA will seek to increase the targeted solar PV installation figure from 100 GW by 2020 to a far higher figure, with some sources suggesting 200 GW by that date.

In 2009, the original PV installation target for the 12th five-year plan was a mere 5 GW, but that threshold has been consistently increased over the past few years, and stood at 35 GW in 2014.

Since the end of last year China’s cumulative solar PV figure stood at more than 28 GW, and a solid start to 2015 has compelled the NEA to assess its solar targets. By the end of 2015, some industry observers believe that China will have reached 45 GW of cumulative installed PV capacity.

The director of China energy economics research center at Xiamen University, Boqiang Lin, has stressed that because the 12th version of the five-year plan has yet to expire, estimating the PV installation figures for 2020 remains tricky.

A previously released figure of 100 GW – which at one stage seemed rather ambitious – should easily be surpassed, he believes, and with continued government support for solar and favorable market conditions, the actual target could be higher, but Lin did now wish to say by how much.

Hareon PV chairman Huaijin Yang did not share Lin’s caution, however, and has stated outright that there should be no reason why China does not set 200 GW as its solar target for 2020.

To achieve this goal between now and 2020, China would need to install more than 30 GW of PV capacity each year, at an investment calculated to be around RMB 240 billion ($38.6 billion) per annum, as well as the identification of vast tracts of suitable land and rooftops.

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.

Popular content

Solid-state batteries enter pilot production, costs expected to drastically drop

01 November 2024 The latest findings from Taipei-based intelligence provider TrendForce show that all-solid-state battery production volumes could have GWh levels by 2...

Share

1 comment

Leave a Reply

Please be mindful of our community standards.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

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.