The mid - and long-term development trend of China's photovoltaic industry is still good in 2019

Highly advocated for energy conservation and emission reduction, global energy production totaled 11.404 billion tons of oil equivalent in 2017, up only 0.62% year-on-year.  At the same time, the production of new energy is performing better and better, accounting for 32.50% of the total in 2017, up from 28.49% in 2016.  

As a major energy producer and consumer, China attaches great importance to environmental protection and encourages the use of new technologies and new energy to reduce the greenhouse effect and promote a virtuous ecological cycle.  In this context, clean energy represented by photovoltaic has good economic and environmental benefits and is supported by the national government.  

Data show that in 2017, China's newly installed photovoltaic power generation was 53.06GW, an increase of 18.52GW year-on-year, a growth rate as high as 53.62%, once again a record high.  In the first half of 2018, affected by policy cooling, the number of new photovoltaic installations in China was about 24GW, basically flat year-on-year.  

According to the current development situation, it is optimistic that after 2020, the number of new photovoltaic installations will rise steadily and is expected to reach 70GW in 2025.  Under a conservative scenario, new pv installations may not touch 2017 levels during 2018-2025, but will continue to grow modestly.  

Power generation costs fall rapidly to achieve affordable access to the Internet  

The key factor for the sustainable and large-scale development of pv lies in whether it can be connected to the Internet at a reasonable price as soon as possible and generate market competitiveness in competition with other types of electricity.  The key factors that determine the cost of electricity generation are the price and efficiency of photovoltaic systems.  

The initial investment of photovoltaic power station can be roughly divided into photovoltaic modules, grid-connected inverters, distribution equipment and cables, power station construction and installation costs, among which the investment cost of photovoltaic modules accounts for 50%-60% of the initial investment.  Therefore, the improvement of photovoltaic cell module efficiency, the progress of manufacturing process and the decline of raw material prices will lead to the reduction of photovoltaic power generation costs.  At present, the cost of module production has been significantly reduced, contributing to the reduction of photovoltaic power generation costs.  

The influencing factors of the power generation efficiency of the system include the conversion efficiency of photovoltaic cells themselves, the use efficiency of the system and the intermediate loss before integration into the system grid, etc. Among them, the conversion efficiency of photovoltaic cells themselves plays a fundamental role, and the photoelectric conversion efficiency of solar cells determines the conversion efficiency of photovoltaic cells.  

In recent years, China has rapidly expanded the scale of solar cells and modules, and made rapid progress in photovoltaic cell manufacturing technology. The quality of products in China ranks among the top in the world, and the efficiency of commercial products has increased by about 0.3-0.4% annually on average.  

Application diversification, diversification to expand prospects  

While encouraging the construction of photovoltaic power stations, China also actively promotes the continuous penetration of photovoltaic applications to other industries, so the application mode of photovoltaic power generation has begun to diversify and diversify.  At present, the development of photovoltaic power stations in China presents a diversified development trend of integration with agriculture, aquaculture, mining and ecological governance, forming photovoltaic water pumps, photovoltaic street lamps, photovoltaic trees and photovoltaic consumer products and other photovoltaic application products gradually diversified.  

Under this trend, distributed pv has received unprecedented attention and development.  Data show that in 2017, China's new installed distributed pv installed 19.44GW, 15.21GW year-on-year increase, up to 3.7 times, accounting for 36.64% of the total installed, 24.39 percentage points higher than 2016, and a new record high.  In addition, distributed new installed capacity in 2017 was not only 4.7 times that of 2016, 14 times that of 2015, 9.5 times that of 2014 and 24.3 times that of 2013, but also far exceeded the total installed capacity at the end of 2016 (10.32GW).  

In the first half of 2018, the number of distributed photovoltaic installations was about 12GW, with a year-on-year growth of nearly 70%, accounting for nearly half, and a significant increase of 21 percentage points compared with the same period last year.  

In addition, the state will carry out market transactions of distributed photovoltaic power generation in combination with the reform of the power system, and encourage photovoltaic power generation projects to be built close to the power load and connected to the medium and low voltage distribution network to achieve the nearby consumption of electricity.  All kinds of distribution network enterprises will provide services for the grid operation of distributed photovoltaic power generation, give priority to the absorption of distributed photovoltaic power generation, construct the technical support system for grid-connected operation of distributed power generation and organize distributed power transactions.  The market-based electricity sales model of distributed photovoltaic power generation projects to power users will be implemented, and the electricity price paid to power grid enterprises will be reasonably determined in accordance with the principle of promoting the nearby consumption of distributed photovoltaic power.  

Therefore, the solar photovoltaic market application will show a wide field, diversified trend, to adapt to a variety of needs of photovoltaic products will continue to come out, in addition to large grid-connected photovoltaic power stations, photovoltaic power generation system combined with buildings, small photovoltaic systems, off-grid photovoltaic systems will also rise rapidly.