On June 15, 2018 in China, the Ministry of Finance (MOF), National Development and Reform Commission of China (NDRC), and National Energy Administration (NEA) co-issued the Notice on Releasing the Catalogue of Additional Subsidies for Renewable Electricity Prices (the Seventh Group), hereinafter referred to as the Notice.
The Notice clearly stated that MOF, NDRC, and NEA would list qualified projects in the "the Catalogue of Additional Subsidies for Renewable Electricity Prices (the Seventh Group)". The qualified project categories are: renewable energy power generation projects, public independent system projects, non-natural-person distributed PV power generation projects and non-natural-person renewable energy power generation projects. In particular, non-natural-person PV power generation projects are the only uniquely listed-alone items among renewable energy projects.
The Notice specified the following rules. For projects that are on the Catalogue, if their "project names", "project companies", "project capacities", and "the length of electric wires" are changed or do not match reality, project owners must timely apply for permission to change from MOF, NDRC, and NEA. Only after permission is granted will these projects continue receiving subsidies on their electric prices.
The issuance of the Notice is based on the two notices below. The first is MOF's, NDRC's, and NEA's Notice on Issuing the Interim Measures for the Administration of Additional Subsidies for Renewable Energy Electricity Prices (No. 102 [2012] of the Ministry of Finance). The second is MOF's Notice on Distributed PV Power Generation Subsidies According to Power Output (No. 390 [2013] of the Ministry of Finance). Related Chinese governmental departments will practically and firmly support the Chinese domestic renewable energy industry to develop via subsidies, especially for the PV industry.
In addition, the Notice clearly stated that the central government only supports existing policy with subsidies. In other words, what is currently covered by the central government’s subsidies are: agriculture and forestry biomass power generation, household garbage incineration power generation, and bio-gas power generation. They are matching the national electricity prices.
By contrast, "co-firing" of coal, agriculture and forestry biomass, and household garbage are not included in China's Catalogue of Additional Subsidies for Renewable Electricity Prices. The "co-firing" subsidies will not come from the central government in China. Hence, local governments should make related policies and measurements to take care of the co-firing subsidies.
On March 13, 2017, the general office of MOF, the general office of NDRC, and the Comprehensive Division of NEA co-issued the Notice on Applying for the Catalogue of Additional Subsidies for Renewable Electricity Prices (the Seventh Group) (No. 17 [2017] of the Ministry of Finance).
Some renewable energy projects filed for application by the end of March 2016. After they are reviewed for more than one year (from March 2017 to June 2018), they will finally receive the long-awaited seventh groupPV subsidies.
One thing worth noting is that there were hints of this issuance of Notice. Not long ago (May 31, 2018), MOF, NDRC, and NEA co-printed the Notice of PV Power Generation in 2018. This notice attracted wide-spread attention from the PV industry.
On June 6, 2018, the NEA expressed its opinions in the conference of representatives from China Photovoltaic industry association (CPIA). NEA said it will implement a series of measures to support the development of the PV industry. NEA will work with MOF to hurry up and issue the Catalogue of Additional Subsidies for Renewable Electricity Prices (the Seventh Group). NEA will enhance the scale of power generation system's reformation, and realistically carry out the pilot program for distributed power generation's commercialized trades. In total, there will be 6 measurements to be conducted.