China’s Solar Additions for 2020 Likely to Decline by 6.6 GW: Report

On the back of widespread coronavirus outbreak and its impact, China’s solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity additions for 2020 is expected to fall short by 6.6 GW against the earlier projections, said the data and analytics company.

Earlier, Chinese solar PV capacity additions were projected at 40 GW for the current year, which is higher than 30.1 GW of 2019.

According to the GlobalData, current estimates show that installations are likely to reach about 33.4 GW over the same timeframe.

Amid Covid-19 pandemic, manufacturers are under tremendous pressure and have slowed down the production rates of components which cause a domino effect across the global solar market, the report added.

Moreover, the prominent industrial areas of Jiangsu, Guangdong, Anhui, and Zhejiang have been greatly affected due to the outbreak and forced to halt operations for a short tenure, as per government directives.

While explaining more on the Chinese market situation, Somik Das, Senior Power Analyst at GlobalData, said that “domestic manufacturers supported by the Chinese government’s aggressive industrial expansion plans, had built large production facilities to cater to the domestic and global demand. Before the outbreak, policy changes pushed for solar grid-parity where the government removed limits on non-centrally-subsidized PV projects across 12 Chinese provinces. Now, with the COVID-19 pandemic, the market is expected to take a major slip downwards.”

Thus, disruptions in the solar manufacturing sector likely to cause a shortage of modules.

“Within China, the capacity additions are likely to be stemmed and many projects are expected to face uncertain delays, due to the unprecedented circumstances. The global demand for solar equipment is expected to decline, because of the economic slowdown and the lack of capital to undertake new project development. However, as soon as the Chinese economy shows nascent and early signs of recovery from the effects of the pandemic, it can be expected that the government would strive to get the industry back in shape,” he added.