Since 2018, solar has been more dominant in China’s power investment, as incremental capacity statistics indicate: 2020H1: China added 11.52GW new solar capacity (7.08GW mounted and 4.43 distributed); while the nation only installed 6.82GW additional wind units. Solar is almost double the size of incremental wind.
Our analysis shows that investment in clean power generation and energy storage capacity reached 1.7tn yuan in 2023 (up 48% year-on-year), while investment in manufacturing capacity for solar, EVs and batteries reached 2.5tn yuan (+60%).
China added almost twice as much utility-scale solar and wind power capacity in 2023 than in any other year. By the first quarter of 2024, China’s total utility-scale solar and wind capacity reached 758 GW, though data from China Electricity Council put the total capacity, including distributed solar, at 1,120 GW.
Wind and solar now account for 37% of the total power capacity in the country, an 8% increase from 2022, and widely expected to surpass coal capacity, which is 39% of the total right now, in 2024. Cumulative annual utility-scale solar & wind power capacity in China, in gigawatts (GW)
International solar companies are expected to directly or indirectly benefit from China’s active solar actions. China's solar market will see another investment boom between 2021-2025, as state-owned power developers set to build up larger PV portfolio.
China continues its relentless expansion of solar power capacity, now home to the world’s largest solar plant. The 2.2 gigawatt facility spans an area of over 25 square kilometers in the Gobi desert. This $3 billion flagship project demonstrates the epic scale of renewable infrastructure developing worldwide.