Rooftop solar helping nation meet green goals

The progress of utility-scale solar projects in the coming months will depend on price movements alongside the solar supply chain, said Wang Bohua, honorary president of the China Photovoltaic Industry Association.

A recent report by Wood Mackenzie forecast China would remain the leader in solar installations in Asia and the world and add roughly 619 GW of solar photovoltaic capacity over the decade.

Many private photovoltaic companies are very optimistic about the government's mandate of encouraging rooftop solar projects in rural regions. In addition to the State-owned enterprises including State Power Investment Corp and China General Nuclear Power Group, many private solar power energy companies are also actively involving themselves in rooftop solar projects, including Shanghai-based solar power energy company Jinko Solar and CHINT Group, a global smart-energy solution provider headquartered in Zhejiang province.

"The policy has generated huge interest among State-owned as well as privately owned developers, which we believe should lift the distributed solar market and provide a boost after policymakers end residential solar subsidies this year," said Luan Dong, China renewables analyst at BloombergNEF.

Luan said it is still too early to tell whether all the capacity being proposed can materialize as distributed solar has always been a case-by-case business that involves various challenges from power demand and roof loading limits to distribution grid congestion.

"Developers are likely to run into issues when they execute their plans, which are broad strokes mostly considering the size of available rooftops," he said.

China's distributed photovoltaic outlay has been on a rapid development path since 2016. China's newly installed capacity of distributed solar photovoltaics in 2017 was 19.4 GW－3.6 times higher than it was just a year before, said the World Resources Institute. Of the country's total 48.2 GW of newly added installed solar capacity last year, distributed solar power accounted for 15.52 GW.

Distributed solar photovoltaics have been installed mainly in the eastern and southern parts of China, where the country's economy is most prosperous and demand for power is greatest, with as much as 52 percent of capacity located in four provinces－Zhejiang, Shandong, Jiangsu and Anhui.

However, while the country's distributed solar power has been growing at a 20 percent growth rate each year, unified standards and guidelines are still in need.

The government's initiative of pushing forward rooftop solar power projects with a county as a unit will not only solve the financing and investment problems of the sector, but also create a unified standard for the sector, said Niu Yanyan, head of the distributed solar department of LONGi Solar Technology Co Ltd, a subsidiary of LONGi Green Energy Technology, a leading photovoltaic module supplier in Shaanxi province.

Niu also called for post-installation guarantees to ensure projects proceed over the long run.

Leon Chuang, global marketing director of Risen Energy, said the government's policy to set out a rooftop photovoltaic mandate will speed up distributed solar projects in the country while coordinating various resources within the photovoltaic industry.

While photovoltaic companies are likely to benefit from the policy, the initiative can also help popularize distributed solar projects among the general public, Chuang said.

Rooftop solar facilities will also encourage sectors involving building integrated photovoltaics, or BIPV, a photovoltaic generating component that also serves as the building's skin, said Liu Sixuan, chief engineer of the new energy building with LONGi.

Building integrated photovoltaics is now a ticket to rapid development, thanks to the government's carbon neutrality goal and the rooftop solar mandate, Liu said.

The active participation of companies and gradual reduction of costs have also added momentum to the sector's present splendor, she added.