Residential solar photovoltaic (PV) installations have boomed in China over recent years. However, knowledge about the economic performance of residential PV investments is still limited. Therefore, this study attempts to make a complete economic assessment of residential PV systems at the county-level.
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.
But building an industry that can stand on its own will be difficult. China produces practically all of the world’s equipment for making solar panels, and almost all of the supply of every component of solar panels, from wafers to special glass.
Beijing is set to further increase its manufacturing and installation of solar panels as it seeks to master global markets and wean itself from imports. China unleashed the full might of its solar energy industry last year. It installed more solar panels than the United States has in its history.
As the initial cost of PV investments keeps declining rapidly, however, residential PV installations began to speed up gradually. The newly installed capacity of residential PV systems in China in 2019 is 4.2 GW p, which is just following the annual addition to solar PV capacity of the U.S., India, Japan, Vietnam, or Spain (REN21, 2020).
Toward this end, the country makes all efforts to develop renewables including solar photovoltaic (PV) generation. As a result, China has become a leader in the production and installation of PV equipment in the world since 2013 (REN21, 2014, 2020).