China heading for 230GW of solar by 2020

China has announced new solar installation targets that suggest its total solar capacity will treble by the end of 2020 to as much as 230GW (from 77GW at the end of 2016).

The new forecast comes from the Asia Europe Clean Energy (Solar) Advisory Co, using newly released targets from the China’s National Energy Administration which set solar targets of between 21 and 22GW for each of the years from 2017 to 2020, with a “top-runner” target of a further 8GW.

 

AECEA analyst Frank Haugwitz says these targets do not include distributed solar PV or “poverty alleviation” projects and is therefore considered to encompass utility-scale ground mounted and Agro-PV projects only.

 

 

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Additionally, various municipalities and locations within specific provinces or autonomous regions are not subject to any limitation.

In total, he concludes, the 86.5GW of ground mounted solar PV will lift total capacity to as much as 190GW to 200GW, and with the addition of the separate target for distributed solar this is likely to take China’s total installed solar PV power generation capacity to around 230 GW.

Comments

One response to “China heading for 230GW of solar by 2020”

  1. brucelee Avatar
    brucelee

    What’s the projected effect on coal use?

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