On October 29th, the National Energy Administration (NEA) held a press conference to release figures regarding the grid-connected capacity of renewable energy in the third quarter of 2019.
From January to September, the country’s newly installed capacity of photovoltaics was 15.99GW, including 7.73GW from photovoltaic power plants and 8.26GW from distributed photovoltaics. According to EnergyTrend, the Green Energy Research Division from TrendForce, the original estimate was 36GW of installed capacity. According to the figures disclosed by NEA, breaking the threshold of 30GW by end of 2019 is also challenging.
As reported by NEA, the newly installed PV capacity in the third quarter was 4.59GW. Earlier this month (mid-October), the grid-connected capacity of residential projects in the third quarter was 2.07GW according to the announcement. This shows that the largest contribution of the cumulative installed capacity in the third quarter is still from the boom of the residential PV projects. As the deadline for the grid connection of the residential PV projects closes on October 31, it is estimated that the growth of the grid-connected capacity in the fourth quarter will be driven by subsidized auction and unsubsidized projects.
The Overview of the Monthly Installation and the Remaining Capacity of the Targeted Scale in 2019
Lions Shih, senior green energy analyst at EnergyTrend, pointed out that assuming that China's PV installed capacity would reach 25GW for the entire 2019, the newly installed capacity would need to reach 9GW in the fourth quarter. In terms of residential PV projects, if the newly installed capacity could reach 1~2GW in October, grid-connected capacity would need to reach 5~7GW in the remaining two months. The subsidized auction and non-subsidized projects are estimated to account for 75% of market demand in the fourth quarter, in addition to 10% of the PV poverty alleviation and other special projects. Judging from the current market conditions, it is quite difficult for the annual PV installed capacity to break the 25GW mark within merely two remaining months.
(Analysis provided by Lions Shih, senior analyst at EnergyTrend. Translated by Emma Hsu, web content editor at TrendForce Corp.)
