China’s installed capacity of solar power reaches around 660GW. Image: Sungrow Floating. China’s National Energy Administration has unveiled that the country’s newly added solar PV capacity in the first quarter of 2024 was 45.74GW, up from 33.66GW in the same quarter last year.
Image: Sungrow Floating. China’s National Energy Administration has unveiled that the country’s newly added solar PV capacity in the first quarter of 2024 was 45.74GW, up from 33.66GW in the same quarter last year. Previous data from the energy administration showed that the newly installed PV capacity in the first two months was 36.72GW.
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.
According to the National Energy Administration of China, new solar installations reached 216.88GW last year, representing a year-on-year increase of 148.12%. New solar PV installations amounted to 53GW for the month of December, increasing by 144.24% year-on-year and representing nearly a quarter of the entire year’s solar capacity additions.
China has pledged to peak its carbon emissions by 2030 and has invested into renewable sources of energy, including solar power, to help meet this pledge. China has been opening new plants for solar energy production.
Of the additions, solar and wind accounted for 65.9% and 22.3% respectively. Also in Q1, China’s cumulative installed capacity of power generation reached 2,990GW, representing a year-on-year growth of 14.5%. The installed capacity from solar PV was around 660GW, increasing by 55% year-on-year.