Employees examine photo voltaic panel merchandise at a tech firm in Zhangye, Gansu province. WANG JIANG/FOR CHINA DAILY
The large growth of solar energy in China, mixed with steady innovation and a whole industrial chain, is reducing manufacturing prices and making new vitality merchandise extra inexpensive all over the world. , specialists say.
This shift advantages the worldwide group, whose present photo voltaic capability nonetheless falls in need of the quantity wanted to fulfill decarbonization targets. Developing international locations specifically want extra superior photo voltaic capability to make electrical energy extra accessible and cost-effective for households and companies, they stated.
The feedback got here after some Western politicians and media shops lately claimed that China was creating extra capability throughout the new vitality sector and inflicting market distortions overseas. by dumping merchandise at low costs, thereby harming different economies.
“The considerations of Western international locations have elevated due to the fast growth of China’s photo voltaic business, which illustrates the fast evolution of the nation’s new vitality sectors. international change, which makes of solar energy is likely one of the most economical sources of electrical energy for many international locations and areas all over the world,” stated Liu Yiyang, deputy secretary-general of the China Photovoltaic Industry Association, a commerce physique.
Liu stated that the present photo voltaic capability nonetheless falls in need of the worldwide market demand, particularly given the appreciable demand for energy in lots of creating international locations.
In a warehouse in Uzbekistan, Chinese photo voltaic panels are set to energise and supply low cost clear vitality for refugees throughout Asia, guided by the UN Refugee Agency and Chinese photo voltaic agency LONGi.
Raouf Mazou, the company’s assistant excessive commissioner for operations, stated that Chinese vitality firms have empowered the company to develop its attain and impression in addressing local weather points and reaching fairness. of vitality for susceptible populations all over the world.
“China’s ample sources, modern know-how and intensive international relationships will make a major contribution to our work. We look ahead to extra fruitful cooperation with the Chinese authorities and firms in fixing the challenges concerned in displacements arising from local weather change,” stated Mazou.
More than 100 international locations reached agreements on the COP28 local weather change convention late final 12 months to make sure that international renewable vitality capability triples to greater than 11,000 gigawatts by 2030, with a cumulative photovoltaic capability to extend to about 5,457 GW beforehand.
According to knowledge compiler Statista, in 2022, the cumulative international photo voltaic PV capability stood at about 1,177 GW, which is in need of the aim.
“Criticism by some politicians that China’s extra photo voltaic capability results in low prices and impacts the worldwide competitiveness of the business is unacceptable. This rhetoric goals to forestall the event of China’s business, and have hostile results on the worldwide inexperienced revolution. The technological revolution within the international PV business has led to fast value reductions, permitting many international locations – particularly creating ones – which might get pleasure from low cost electrical energy, selling native financial growth and bridging regional variations,” stated Lin Boqiang, head of the China Institute for Energy Policy Studies at Xiamen University.
“Chinese enterprises are additionally selling the worldwide growth of the PV business via worldwide cooperation and abroad factories, which is facilitating the inexperienced transformation of different international locations of their vitality constructions. “Whether it is within the United States or elsewhere, with out competing merchandise from China, it is laborious to think about if the present worldwide confidence in addressing local weather change will stay robust,” Liu stated .
Taking Europe for instance, a report by the International Energy Agency exhibits that, from 2021 to 2023, new installations of photovoltaic and wind energy are estimated to save lots of virtually 100 billion euros ($ 107 billion ) for electrical energy shoppers within the European Union.
CPIA estimates that with out new wind and photo voltaic installations, the common wholesale electrical energy value within the EU can be 8 p.c larger in 2022.
“The fast growth of China’s PV business has a deep that means for a lot of creating international locations. It supplies a approach for creating international locations to beat vitality shortages in a cheap solution to scale back dependence on imported fossil fuels,” stated Liu.
