Solar investments in China reached RMB29 billion (US$4.4 billion) in the first four months of the year, according to the country’s National Energy Administration (NEA).
The sum represents more than a 200% rise in spending year-on-year, by far the greatest increase in investment in any power generation type, with spending on power grids (4.7%) and oil and gas facilities (51.5%) rising by much smaller amounts.
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Data from the NEA said the installed capacity of solar PV in China was now at roughly 320GW, a year-on-year increase of 23.6%. This is considerably higher than the 259GW reported by the country’s National Renewable Energy Consumption Monitoring and Warning Centre in May.
In February, Wang Bohua, honorary chairman of the China Photovoltaic Industry Association (CPIA), said the industry expected to add between 83GW-99 GW of new capacity each year during through to 2025.
He said distributed PV accounted for more than half of new installs for the first time last year and that, moving forward, China would see distributed solar grow at the same pace as utility-scale project.
In October, PV Tech reported how China installed 25.56GW of new solar installations in the first nine months of 2021, with distributed installations accounting for nearly two-thirds (64.2%) of installs in those nine months.
It installed 5.56GW of solar in Q1 this year, according to data released in May that revealed the most prolific regions of China for solar installations in the first quarter of 2021 were Shandong (1.28GW), Shaanxi (490MW), Anhui (470MW), Guangdong (430MW) and Jiangsu (400MW).
