TANG SHIHUA
17 Dec 2021
(Yicai Global) Dec. 17 — China is likely to increase its installations of photovoltaic power by 75 gigawatts next year, driven by a huge line-up of domestic projects and an expected dip in the price of the raw material silicon, Shanghai Securities News reported, citing the honorary chairman of the China Photovoltaic Industry Association.
It would be a big jump from this year’s new PV installations, which only amounted to 23.9 GW in the first ten months, Wang Bohua said at the 2021 China Photovoltaic Industry Annual Conference on Dec. 15. As a result, Wang has revised downward his previous estimate for the full year to between 45 GW and 55 GW from between 55 GW and 65 GW.
The price of silicon has trebled since the beginning of the year to CNY270 (USD42) per kilogram. But annual capacity is being hiked by more than a third to between 800,000 and 860,000 tons and once this comes on the market, prices should peak and then start to fall in the second half, said Zou Yanhui, a green energy industry analyst at Chinese market analysis firm TrendForce.
China produced 273.8 billion kilowatt hours of solar power in the first 10 months, a year-on-year increase of 22.8 percent, according to conference data. PV power accounted for 4 percent of the country’s total electricity generation over the period, 0.3 percentage point higher than a year ago.
Solar wafer output jumped 54.2 percent in the first three quarters from a year ago to 165 GW, cell production surged 54.5 percent to 147 GW and panel output soared 58.5 percent to 130 GW.
Exports of solar products jumped 44.6 percent in the first 10 months year on year to USD23.1 billion. PV panels accounted for 85 percent of these exports, a gain of 44.8 percent.
Editor: Kim Taylor