China Solar PV Capacity Surges 22% in Q1 2018

In contrast, utility-scale installed capacity declined 64 per cent to only 1.95GW in the first quarter of 2018, compared to the prior year period.

In the first quarter of 2018 China installed a total of 9.56GW of Solar PV capacity. This is an increase of 22 percent as compared to previous year, according to China’s National Energy Administration (NEA).

The official breakdown of installations included 7.68GW of distributed solar capacity (DC), which increased by 217 per cent, compared to the prior year period.

In contrast, utility-scale installed capacity declined 64 per cent to only 1.95GW in the first quarter of 2018, compared to 2017

The decline in installation of utility-scale has very adverse effect on some of the publicly listed companies such as GCL System Integrated. The companies were heavily dependent on the utility-scale sector and were warned of losses, due to decline in the demand, for the first quarter of 2018.

In a statement by Asian Europe Clean Energy (Solar) Advisory Co (AECEA), they forecasted around 7.5GW of installations in China in the first quarter of 2018.

“Despite the increase in Q1 2018 installations, it still expects full-year total installations in China to reach in the range of 40GW to 45GW, down from NEA figures of 52.5GW in 2017” AECEA said.

According to data released by SolarPower Europe, the installation increased by about 29 percent from 76.5 percent in 2016 to 98.9 percent in 2017. This showed a considerable success of global solar power.

Asia was a major source of growth in the sector, with solar deployment in China and India contributing more than 63 percent of the total solar demand in 2017, SolarPower Europe said.

However, the Chinese solar market saw the highest growth with US and India on second and third spot. The Chinese solar market reached from 34.5GW in 2016 to 52.8 GW in 2017, whereas the US and Indian growth was 11.8 GW and 9.6 GW respectively.

Source: Impact4All