China is currently a bit away from the record expansion of 53 gigawatts in one year, also because there is a lot going on in solar subsidies.

Photo: Ciel & Terre

Asia-Europe Clean Energy (Solar) Advisory (AECEA) maintains its forecasts that China will have installed between 20 and 24 gigawatts of new photovoltaic systems in 2019. For this year, the analysts expect an additional 23 to 31 gigawatts. Citing "unconfirmed sources", AECEA said that only 500 megawatts of new photovoltaic capacity had been added in China in November. According to the authorities, the newly installed capacity was around 17.5 gigawatts by the end of October. This means that the total expansion in 2019 will probably fall short of the government's plans to target 41 gigawatts of new photovoltaic output.

Budget for 2020

The analysts added the first draft of the photovoltaic policy for 2020 to their publication. A budget for solar subsidies of 1.75 billion yuan (225 million euros) this year, including 500 million yuan for private rooftops, is suggested there. These numbers represent a 42 percent decline from last year's 3 billion yuan. But AECEA does not mention Reuters' report that support for large-scale photovoltaic systems should be stopped immediately.

AECEA further explains that the frustration with missed deadlines that prevented the projects allocated for 2019 from being built could force the authorities to take stricter measures this year. The analysts suggest that December 31st, as the cutoff date for this year's projects, could be followed by two quarters in which the feed-in tariff will be reduced by 0.02 yuan (2.6 euro cents) per kilowatt hour or more, or that the projects be postponed At the end of the year, support could even be refused entirely.

The probability that not all of the 5.2 gigawatts of unsupported "grid parity projects" planned last year could be realized - and the fact that another 8.7 gigawatts of grid-connected capacity are to be allocated this year could prove to be optimistic it further. AECEA has doubts that the second round surcharges for unsupported grid parity projects will be distributed this year.

A new threat

Although monitoring of mandatory renewable energy targets in the provinces will begin later this year and the responsibilities of the grid, power and distribution companies for clean energy will be specified, China's magic of grid parity photovoltaic systems could soon be threatened. AECEA refers to the statements made by Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang in October that coal remains the country's most important energy source and that domestic oil and gas production should be expanded. What is more, the floating coal benchmark coal price, which was previously only set by the authorities, was to be supplemented by a floating element. This could cause coal prices to drop by up to 15 percent annually from next year and could become a threat to solar time.

This article originally appeared on www.pv-magazine-germany.com , and has been republished with permission by pv magazine (www.pv-magazine.com and www.pv-magazine-germany.com )