This study constructs an energy-economy-environment integrated model by way of a dynamic programming approach to explore China's solar PV power optimal development path during the period 2018–2050 from the perspective of minimum cost.
This development plan is basically in accordance with the current status of solar PV application in China as large-scale PV (LS-PV), BIPV & BAPV, and rural electrification constitute the major market of solar PV, as shown in Fig. 1.
New and cumulative installed capacities of China's solar PV power from 2000 to 2017. In order to effectively coordinate the scale and speed of the solar PV installation with the economic development, China has occasionally set and adjusted the development targets for solar PV power.
Chinese government has implemented a range of initiatives which aim at increasing the share of residential solar PV generation in the energy mix. Following policy incentives are listed from 2009 to 2018, and mainly pivoted on financial incentives.
With regard to technology research and development, the latest photoelectric conversion efficiency of China’s mass production of silicon solar cell has reached more than 25%, which is the world’s leading level (Chen et al. 2022). Figure 3. Global top 10 solar PV markets, 2021–2022 (source: author drawing based on solar power Europe 2023).
The program used a mixture of small hydro, PV, and wind power. This program significantly affected the development of the PV industry. China built several solar cell packaging lines and the production capacity of solar cell module reached 100 MW promptly .