Related News
Small-scale solar power plants exemplify push for green energy
Print Edition
IN the village of Nanzhaike in the eastern suburbs of Jinan, capital of east China’s Shandong Province, Zhang Yazhou’s house stands out.
More than half of the courtyard is occupied by dozens of solar panels. It is a (photovoltaic) power plant, or “household-distributed PV solar power generating system,” a tiny part of China’s big push for renewable energy.
Can green energy tackle climate change? A national plan aims to bring non-fossil fuels up to about 15 percent of energy consumption by 2020, from the 9.8 percent at the end of last year.
Zhang, 61, a retiree from a power firm, spent more than 300,000 yuan (US$49,000) on his power plant. It can generate 400 kilowatt-hours of electricity per day, 12 times his requirement.
Such plants, scattered around neighborhoods, factories and offices, can sell extra power to local power grids.
Zhang plans to have the plant connected to the local grid, which will buy his excess supply for 0.45 yuan per kWh, the same price as household electricity.
Unlike some other regions, Shandong has yet put the household PV system onto the tariff subsidy list, citing their small generating capacity. Once connected, the plant should make at least 200 yuan a day, and Zhang could recoup his investment within four years. The plant will save 58.4 tons of standard coal and cut carbon dioxide emissions by 36.5 tons annually.
By last month, Shandong had 132 distributed PV power installations, with a total capacity of over 100 megawatts (MW). It aims to power up the figure to 300MW by next year and to 1.5 gigawatts (GW) by 2020.
China’s first household PV generating facility was installed by a Beijing resident at his home in 2012. Since then, the installations, both household and industrial, have sprung up all over.
Targets for new solar power capacity, reinforced with favorable policies — mainly subsidies and tax breaks — focus on trying to stimulate uptake.
In the first half of this year, 1 GW of new distributed PV capacity brought the country’s cumulative capacity to 4.1GW. Last year, 12.9GW of new solar power new capacity, an increase of 232 percent year on year, accounted for about 31 percent of new capacity installed globally. Last year, China spent 21 percent of the global solar industry budget, pouring US$23.6 billion into the industry, making China the world’s largest solar energy market.
China is now the world leader in both wind and hydropower with fast growth in other renewable sources.
Xie Zhenhua, an official on climate change, said the new renewable energy capacity installed by China last year accounted for 37 percent of global new capacity, and from 2005-13, China accounted for 24 percent of the total.
As of June this year, China’s hydropower capacity stood at 290GW, more than double that of 2005. On-grid windpower capacity surpassed 81GW, more than 60 times of that in 2005. China is cutting greenhouse gas emissions by developing clean energy, energy conservation and improving efficiency, Xie said.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
