Featured in Down to the wires 06-2024

Growing pains for home solar in China

Small-scale, “distributed” PV has become a significant part of the world’s biggest solar market but it is now butting up against the same grid constraints that have frustrated utility-scale PV in China and other parts of the world.

By

Vincent Shaw

10 Jun 2024

C&I electricity prices can be much higher than residential tariffs in China. | Photo: Sungrow

Distributed-generation (DG) solar arrays in China have evolved to rival utility-scale sites. National Energy Administration (NEA) data revealed around 96.3 GW of the 216.3 GW of solar generation capacity added in China in 2023 was commercial and industrial (C&I), residential, and other small- and medium-scale systems. The 23.8 GW of distributed systems installed in the …

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