China’s National Energy Administrative (NEA) announced an additional 5.3GW solar installation target on September 28. The additional capacity, including ground-mounted and distributed systems, is required to start constructing in 2015 and to become commercial operating by June 30, 2016. The extra capacity represents China’s ambition to reduce the carbon emissions. It also marks strong demands in the nation over the following years.

According to the announcement unveiled on September 28, the additional capacity is deployed as followed:

Li Keqiang, the Premier of China’s State Council, committed in a document handed to the U.N. that China will make effort to reduce 40~45% of CO2 emissions below 2005 levels by 2020 while increase the portion of non-fossil energy up to 15%. China’s leader Xi Jinping met the U.S.’s president Obama in September, and the two heads together unveiled the “U.S.-China Joint Presidential Statement on Climate Change,” in which China aims to reduce CO2 emissions per unit of GDP by 60~65% on the 2005 levels by 2030 as well as to prompt nationwide using of non-fossil energy resources up to 20%. All these international claims are correlated to China’s energy policies that were toned to be led by solar power.

Regions with better installing conditions and on-scheduled development like Hebei, Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang are receiving permission to install more solar capacities. The new Announcement also allocates specific supporting measures region by region. Dany Qian, vice president of JinkoSolar, told a Chinese media, “The new plan is more scientific. They are also reasonable and detailed regarding the geographical allocations and regional needs.” The China’s solar PV industry could be revolutionized by the solar policies including the Pilot Program, while the policies would drive constructions of solar power plants with higher qualities.

In the first half of 2015, China’s total new solar installation capacity was 7.73GW. The 17.8GW annual target could still be completed in time because the fourth quarter is the peak season for solar installations. The same in 2015, the first phase of the 3GW Pilot Program, a total of 1GW solar capacity, has been completely bided and is scheduled to be built in mid-2016. Furthermore, China published this April the “China 2050 High Renewable Energy Penetration Scenario,” depicting a cumulative solar installation capacity of up to 2700GW by 2050 – multiple times higher than the 100~200GW target by 2020 that the Thirteenth Five-year Plan could set. If the nation is to achieve such ambitious goals, it is ineluctable for China to overcome issues including how to fulfill the stronger and stronger demands, how to finance, and how to transfer solar energy as a daily option for citizens.

This Week’s Spot Price

Spot price of China’s polysilicon fluctuated between RMB112~113/kg, representing that most Chinese polysilicon manufacturers were suffering from the dumped polysilicon from overseas makers. Some polysilicon manufacturers even thought it would be difficult to see price rise in the recent future.

Quotes of wafers remained mostly unchanged during this week as China’s National Day Holidays was around the corner. However, Taiwanese market could support price raise in October due to stronger demand even price trend of mono-si wafers was flat.

China’s National Day Holidays restrict price increase of PV cells although the order visibility was still high. While it is noticeable that the quote of mainstream mono-si PV cells went close to RMB2.35/watt, which is almost the same with quotes of multi-si cells. The situation proved that the weak demand to mono-si products would slash their prices, and the multi-si PERC cell manufacturers would be severely impacted if the quotes of China-made mono-si PV cells went closer to or became the same with quotes of multi-si PV cells.

Boomed demand to mutli-si PV modules was triggered by intensive PV system installations in China. The boom also consumed most of first-tier manufacturers’ production capacities as well as drove a slight price increase. The spot prices were settled depending on payment terms. PV modules with profitable payment terms could be sold out by spot price between RMB3.9/watt and RMB4/watt, and the price trend would climb.