*128,936MW: in total of Q1-Q3 New PV Power Generation
*145% YoY Growth: on Q1-Q3 New PV Power Generation
*24 Provinces Exceeding 1 Million kW: Number of Provinces/Areas of New PV Generation
China's National Energy Administration (NEA) has released detailed information on China's newly installed PV capacity in the first three quarters of 2023. Both large-scale ground-mounted PV and small-scale distributed PV sector installations are growing rapidly and are expected to accelerate in the final quarter as per the performance in the fourth quarter of 2022 and 2021.
In the first three quarters of 2023, China added 128,936 MW (128.94 GW) of new PV capacity, of which ground-mounted PV power plants accounted for half, with 61.79 GW of new grid-connected capacity, and commercial and industrial distributed PV added 34.16 GW of new grid-connected capacity. China is rolling out policies, including Green Electricity Certificates (GECs), to ensure a healthy development of the PV market. China is introducing policies including Green Electricity Certificates (GEC) to ensure the healthy development of the PV market. The Chinese government has also clarified rules on what land can be used for PV, and the latest Renewable Power Supply Guarantee (RPS) mechanism has recently raised targets for most provinces.
The way in which the PV market is developing varies from province to province. The central and western regions are rich in land resources and are building a large number of large-scale ground-mounted PV projects, e.g. Xinjiang, Qinghai, Inner Mongolia and Yunnan. As can be seen from the chart, in the first nine months, Xinjiang's new ground-based power plant installations reached 8.82GW, an average of about 1GW/month, accounting for 14% of new ground-based installations in the first nine months; the top 10 provinces all have more than 2GW of new ground-based power plant installations, which account for a combined total of 74%. The new installations in the five northwestern provinces (Xinjiang, Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai and Shaanxi) are at the forefront!
While the southeastern & middle-China provinces of Henan, Shandong, Anhui and Jiangsu are building industrial, commercial and household PV projects. Henan's new household PV installations in the first 9 months reached 8.52GW, an average of about 1GW/month, accounting for 26% of the new household PV installations in the first 9 months, and other provinces have seen a precipitous drop compared to Henan's scale. Zhejiang and Jiangsu's new industrial and commercial distributed PV installed capacity reached 5.13GW and 4.98GW, in the first nine months of new industrial and commercial distributed installed capacity accounted for 30%!
Some provincial governments are already taking steps to make the rooftop PV boom more sustainable by raising the thresholds for approval or grid connection, or requiring small-scale distributed PV projects to be equipped with energy storage.
