Is DER Taking Off in China?

Last month, the Chinese Photovoltaic Industry Association announced that the country had installed a whopping 24.4 GW of new capacity in the first half of 2017. That China broke its previous year’s record once again makes the announcement news in itself. What is interesting, however, is not the final figure, but how China reached it.

In the first half of 2017, ground-mounted installations (installations without any onsite electricity demand) fell 16% to 17.3 GW, while distributed PV—mostly rooftop projects—almost tripled, reaching 7.1 GW in the same period. Of the 7.1 GW, 3.0 GW of distributed PV was installed in June 2017 alone. By the end of June, China had 102 GW of PV capacity installed, of which 83% was ground-mounted and 17.4 GW was distributed.

A highly attractive incentive program drove this growth. China’s distributed PV users (rooftop plants of up to 20 MW) can access a feed-in tariff premium for 2017 of ¥0.42/kWh ($0.06/kWh) on top of the electricity price for 15 years. In addition, some provinces offer further incentives. For example, Hebei provides ¥0.15/kWh ($0.02/kWh) for the first 3 years of the plant (effective in 2015). Jiangsu Province offers ¥0.50/kWh ($0.08/kWh) for 5 years, and the City of Shaoxing gives an additional ¥1.00/kWh ($0.16/kWh).

The national incentive was left at the same level for the last 4 years while PV module prices fell about 40%, so distributed PV became economically attractive. In addition, late in 2016, China’s National Energy Administration proposed a 28%-52% cut to the distributed PV tariff, depending on the region where the system is installed. This was changed in the latest draft, which now proposes a national tariff of ¥0.30 ($0.05) per kWh on top of the electricity price that would take effect in January 2018.

The expected drop in the incentives created a rush to install distributed PV in 2017, but there are other factors in favor of the massive growth. Curtailment is a major issue faced by Chinese PV installations, and it has pushed the country to ban new ground-mounted installations in the provinces that have the most issues—like Xinjiang and Gansu, where 26% and 22% of all the potential generation is lost (at a cost to the system owner) due to curtailment, respectively. A key advantage of distributed PV installations over ground-mounted installations is the offtaker of the electricity produced onsite, as it limits the risk of curtailment.

Opportunities Beyond PV

Other distributed energy resources (DER) technologies are also poised to gain some ground, thanks to the deployment of distributed PV. In March 2017, the National Energy Board issued a draft paper with “guidelines for the promotion of energy storage technology and industry development,” creating some momentum for the country’s storage market. The local PV companies Trina Solar and Xie Xin have also shown interest in this market and have started to invest in storage to complement their product portfolios. China’s vehicle manufacturer BYD also has a long track record producing battery cells and recently launched energy storage systems for residential and commercial applications.

China’s Competitive DER Industry

The development of DER in China could easily reverberate in the rest of the world. Chinese PV OEMs already lead the world in production and are taking an important role in technology innovation in the renewable sector. If the large Chinese inverter and battery players like Huawei, Sungrow, and BYD create innovative DER products for their domestic market that can be adapted to the North American and European markets, this will be difficult to answer. Despite the import tariff, Asian-made PV modules have conquered the market. However, giving Chinese companies some control over energy assets might be too much for Western governments. Huawei, for example, has been blocked from selling to the US telecom industry. But one thing is certain: we can bet the Chinese player will try.