Fishman, an energy analyst at the Lantau Group, an economic consultancy firm in Shanghai, was keen to meet with developers in Shandong to understand how China is developing extensive rooftop solar installations at such a remarkable pace.
Most of that rooftop solar has been added in the past two years, as China offered support for local governments to boost installations, and raised power rates to businesses, making generating their own electricity more attractive.
The country's rapid development of rooftop solar capacity is also driven by government incentives. Newly added annual installed capacity for solar stations has been around 30 GW on average over the past few years, China New Energy Investment and Financing Alliance said.
Rooftop solar PV installations in China may surge in the next three years as the country goes through a green energy transition and plans to make renewable energy a key cornerstone in the country's path to a greener economy, a recent research report said.
The growth of Residential rooftop solar (RRS) in some western countries has predominantly been driven by individual or market behaviour and has been extensively studied. However, the development landscape of RRS in China differs, and its driving mechanisms remain unclear.
Rooftop installations in China increased to 27.3 gigawatts in 2021 from 19.4 GW in 2017, and the growth should keep rising for the rooftop solar market, a Rystad Energy analysis piece said. Before 2017, rooftop solar was almost non-existent, with only 4 GW of installed capacity in 2016.