Page 38 - A Comprehensive Guide to Solar Energy Systems

32 A COMPrEHENSIVE GUIDE TO SOlAr ENErGY SYSTEMS

technology with regard to application in various regions, climate, and power network
conditions. To ensure that advanced products have access to the market, the government-
sponsored PV projects will give priority to advanced PV technologies and products.
With the share of PV electricity growing in the power system, the integration of large
utility-scale PV generations to the grid has become an acute question. Currently, the solar
energy utilized in China almost all come from solar PV, and 80% of the PV solar power are
utility-scale systems. Here, distributed PV refers to a small PV system that is proximate to
the user and the electricity is mainly used on site; utility scale PV refers to large solar sta-
tions that are integrated to grid. Despite that application of utility-scale PV is relatively
more mature in China, in comparison to distributed PV, insufficient capability of the grid
pushes the government to put priority on distributed PV. In view of this, in addition to the
scarcity of land resources and high electricity load in Eastern and central China, PV instal-
lations would be more deployed outside the western regions in the next few years.
There were signs that PV deployment is shifting to the east-central region. According to
NEA [20], 72% (24.8 GW) of the capacity increment during the year 2016 was deployed in
the east. Furthermore, the capacity of distributed PV (10.32 GW) increased by 70% in 2016
when compared with the previous year.

2.4.3 Special Schemes

2.4.3.1 Photovoltaic Pioneer Program
In June 2015, to ensure a wider application of advanced PV technologies, the Chinese gov-
ernment issued the Opinions on Promoting Application of PV Products with Advanced
Technologies and Industrial Upgrading [21], proposing the implementation of the PV Pio-
neer Program. The program is being carried out by constructing large PV demonstration
bases and pilot engineering projects, and all the projects will be compulsorily put out to
tender. The aim is to unify the deployment of large utility-scale PV stations as well as pro-
viding market support for advanced PV products and technologies.
For the PV demonstration bases and projects under this program, the adoption of the
advanced PV products and technologies that have been chosen by the government is com-
pulsory. The program will encourage the use of innovative products that lead to a high ratio
of renewable forms of energy which can be integrated into the power system. A compari-
son of the technical standard of the general PV power projects and PV Pioneer Program
power projects shows that the standard for the Pioneer Program products is noticeably
higher (Table 2.8).
Of the solar PV projects approved by NEA for construction in 2016, the Pioneer Program
projects, with a combined capacity of 5.5 GW, accounted for more than one third. NEA
stipulated that the individual scale of PV power project should, in principle, be larger than
100 MW. It is possible that in future the NEA might launch an updated version of PV Pio-
neer Program, constructing 2–3 demonstration bases of at least 1 GW each.
looking forward, it will be increasingly difficult to get the green light for the con-
struction of PV systems if the project cannot be included in either of the national special
schemes mentioned here and in the following section.