S
olar Energy Booming in China
by Zijun Li on September 23, 2005
Solar Energy Booming in China
The city of Beijing, China’s second-largest energy consumer, has announced plans to build a “solar street” where buildings, streetlights, and other features will run entirely on energy from the sun. A
second pilot project in the city’s Xuanwu Park will introduce solar power for lighting, heating, and refrigeration. Both projects reflect a larger government commitment to dramatically increase China’s use of renewable energy in the coming decades.
In a move to cut domestic reliance on coal and oil, the Chinese parliament passed
a historic law in February pledging to use renewable energy resources for 10 percent of China’s energy consumption by 2020. The new law includes details on the purchase and use of solar photovoltaics (PV), solar water heating, and renewable energy fuels. In particular, the government will promote the use of solar PV in buildings as a way to push China’s solar energy industry, said an official at the International New Energy and Renewable Energy Forum on September 19.
China has several advantages in solar energy development. According to
Xinhua Net, two-thirds of China’s land areareceives more than 2,000 hours of sunlight annually, more than many other regions of similar latitude, including Europe and Japan. This gives China a potential solar energy reserve equivalent to 1,700 billion tons of coal. And China has become a world leader in PV cell production: Shangde Solar Energy Power Company, the country’s largest crystal silicon solar cell producer, recently
expanded its operations and expects to boost China’s total production capacity of the technology from 200 to 320 megawatts by the end of this year.
China is also a world leader in solar thermal production and use, accounting for 55 percent of global solar heating capacity (excluding pool systems)—or 52 million square meters of collectors—by the end of 2003, reports Worldwatch Institute senior researcher Janet Sawin in
Vital Signs 2005. China aims to boost its production capacity of one specific type of collector, solar heat panels, to 51 million square meters by the end of 2005
, which wouldmake it the world leader in solar heat panel production, according to an official from the National Engineering Research Center for Renewable Energy.
Several upcoming events, such as the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, Shanghai Expo 2010, and the 2007 World Conference on Solar Energy, will further stimulate China’s solar energy industry. According to
China Daily, solar power and terrestrialheat will be used at various Olympic venues; for example, 2-3 megawatt solar generators will power the sports facilities. The Shanghai city government, meanwhile, has drafted a three-year plan to boost municipal use of solar energy by 2007, including setting up several power generators with a combined capacity of 5,000 kilowatts, undertaking 30 projects that combine urban construction with solar energy, and installing solar panels at the factories of 20-30 heavy industries. A proposal has also been approved to install thousands of rooftop solar panels on commercial and residential buildings and educational institutions, according to
Shanghai Daily.
With these and other initiatives, China is playing an important role in providing global solar energy markets with the policy support and legal protection they need.
Worldwatch Institute statistics show that world PV cell production reached an estimated 1,200 megawatts in 2004, while the global market for solar thermal collectors grew some 50 percent between 2001 and 2004. As China’s solar market emerges, it will be instrumental to moving the world to greater energy efficiency and environmental sustainability.
