Qihe County, which is located in the northwestern part of China’s Shandong Province, formally initiated a major DG PV program on September 16, according to the reporting from the local news outlets. This is a multi-year program, and the county aims to have achieved the followings by 2024: (1) the installed DG PV generation capacity of the county reaching the GW level, (2) the PV electricity output of the county exceeding 1,000GWh, (3) DG PV systems comprising more than 75% of the county’s generation capacity based on new energy technologies, and (4) DG PV generation meeting more than 20% of the county’s energy consumption.
Regarding the schedule of the program, the county intends to have done the followings by the end of this year: (1) completing the plans to develop 300MW of DG PV projects, (2) commencing the installation of 100MW of DG PV systems, and (3) connecting 100MW of DG PV systems to the grid. The county will be investing around RMB 400 million into the program this year. And even though 2024 is the deadline for achieving the targets of the program, the county is striving to pull the schedule forward by two years (i.e., 2022). The local government appears to want to shorten the entire development cycle as much as it can.
The roofs of party buildings, public buildings, commercial buildings, and factories are designated as priority sites for installations of DG PV systems. The roofs of residences in rural communities will also be made available for PV installations if local conditions are suitable. However, DG projects have to adhere to the principles of consistency in policies and uniformity in standards so as to ensure that the program as a whole can scale up. Regarding business or operational model, the PV systems installed on public and commercial buildings will adopt the model of “self-consumption while selling surplus electricity to the grid”. As for the PV systems installed on residential buildings, they will all be connected to the grid. The program is projected to increase the annual incomes of individual rural households by more than RMB 1,000.
At the same time, Qihe is looking for ways to speed up the development of PV power plants in the nearby mining area. Candidate sites include subsided land, water reservoirs, and sedimentation ponds. The local government is being called upon to quickly finish reviewing proposed PV power plant projects and the related preliminary development tasks.
Data from Bloomberg NEF show that installations of rooftop PV systems in China from the start of this year to this September reflect a huge increase of 161% compared with the same period last year. In July, news agencies and energy news websites reported that the National Energy Administration (NEA) of China wants several counties to have 20% of their residential buildings fitted with rooftop PV systems. Bloomberg also reported that the NEA has launched a nationwide pilot scheme for expanding rooftop PV generation. Shandong, Henan and Jiangsu have contributed a large portion of the applications for this scheme.