New figures from China’s National Energy Administration have proclaimed that the country installed 9.9 GW of new solar PV capacity in the first nine months of 2015.
According to the National Energy Administration (NEA), by way of the country’s state media outlet, the Xinhua News Agency, China installed a total of 9.9 GW of new solar PV capacity in the first nine months of 2015, including 8.32 GW from solar PV power stations and 1.58 GW from distributed PV projects.
The news comes not long after the NEA announced earlier this month that China’s solar PV capacity is set to reach 150 GW by 2020. According to Dong Xiufen, the director of the new energy office with National Energy Administration, “future work will focus on distributing PV in central and east China as well as PV stations in west China” in an attempt to increase PV capacity by 20 GW each year.
The NEA revealed earlier this year that China had installed 7.7 GW of new solar PV capacity in the first half of the year, bringing the country’s total capacity up to 35.8 GW. Fast forward through the third quarter of 2015, and another 2.2 GW of solar capacity was added, bringing the country’s total cumulative capacity up to 37.95, broken down into 31.70 GW from PV power plants and 6.25 GW from distributed PV projects.
This puts China well behind its own finish line, however, after announcing in March its intention to install 17.8 GW of new solar PV capacity in 2015. Furthermore, as reported, the NEA was forced to allow 9% of total installed solar PV to sit idle for the first six months of the year, a figure that has apparently increased by a percentage point or two since June.
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