As shown in , since 2013, China’s newly added distributed photovoltaic installed capacity have fluctuated upward, and reached 29.28 GW by 2021, accounting for 53.4% of the total, and exceeding the centralized photovoltaic system for the first time in history.
Based on the above reasons, the Chinese government plans to vigorously promote the construction of photovoltaic system in rural areas, which has been included in the 14 th Five-Year Plan of renewable energy development. In the foreseeable future, rural photovoltaic system in China will achieve rapid and sustainable growth. Figure 4.
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 .
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.
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).
In order to develop economically by sustaining its own energy demand without harming the environment, the Chinese government has the incentive to support the development of solar power generation. China started research on solar cells in 1958, which were first applied on the satellite Dongfanghong no. 2 in 1971.