Joseph Jacobelli, an independent energy analyst and executive vice-president for Asia business at Cenfura Ltd, a smart energy services company, said the Gonghe project will not be the last major solar power project, given the hundreds of gigawatts in solar capacity that China is expected to add in the next two to three decades.
Shandong is leading China’s rooftop solar-development initiatives, accounting for 18% of such projects across the country. As of March, the province had installed 33 gigawatts (GW) of distributed solar capacity, enough to power an estimated 18 million homes.
At the same time, the Whole County PV programme provides an opportunity to revitalize rural China, local officials say. For example, homeowners can receive extra income by lending their rooftops to solar developers, or by selling the power generated by their rooftop system, Fishman says. The plan seems to be working.
Currently, many of China’s eastern regions rely on power generated and transmitted from the west. In recent years, China has shifted its focus from centralized solar farms to smaller-scale distributed solar projects, as photovoltaic research continues to improve the technology and lower its costs.
The plan seems to be working. Last year, China installed a record-breaking 87.4 GW of solar capacity, 59% more than in the previous year, according to China’s National Energy Administration. This takes the country’s total installed photovoltaic capacity to 392.6 GW.
Figure 2 shows an example where 500W of power is generated from the solar panels and a washing machine is using 2,000W. More power is being used by the appliance than is being generated by the solar panels so an extra 1,500W is being purchased from your supplier.