Monday October 10, 06:29 PM
Solar Energy Industry To Have Broad Prospects In China
BEIJING, Oct 10 Asia Pulse - The solar energy industry is predicted to have broad prospects in China, which has issued the Renewable Energy Law and signed the Kyoto Protocol.
The Chinese government has promised that renewable energy will make up 10 per cent of the country's total installed capacity of power generating by 2020. Among them, the photovoltaic system will have a capacity of 450 megawatts (MW).
As the international oil price repeatedly sets record highs, it is urgent to find out a substitute of gasoline, and it also propels many countries to take measures of saving energy and developing new energy in succession. China's policy concerning the development of new energy has aroused increasing concerns.
The solar energy sector has generated two major industries, that is, the solar energy heat utilization industry and solar energy photovoltaic industry. The solar energy heat utilization industry is mainly applied in water heater. It is learned that Chinas annual production of water heater has reached 10 million sets, saving 10 million tons of standard coal equivalent annually. At present, Chinas sales of solar energy water heaters are 10 fold more than that of Europe. China now ranks first in the world in terms of solar energy water heater production or ownership.
However, it only accounts for a very small part of the utilization of solar energy. The most important part is the photovoltaic industry. The photovoltaic industry is one of the fastest-growing industries since 1980s. The development of photovoltaic market in 2004 has surpassed any leaps in the history of industry. The photovoltaic industry grew 60.4 per cent, reaching 12GW.
China is promoting the application of solar energy on a large scale mainly in Tibet, Inner Mongolia and Ningxia. The solar energy industry has entered into the rapid growth and profit-making stage since 2003. In the foreseeable future, Chinas solar energy industry will achieve success because of policy support and successful marketized operation.
At present, China has 10-plus silicon solar cell enterprises, which mainly produce crystalline silicon solar cells, but it also has a certain production of non-crystalline film solar cell. In terms of quantity, the production of mono-crystalline silicon solar cell is a bit bigger than that of multi-crystalline silicon solar cell at present, but the multi-crystalline silicon solar cell boasts an advantage in cost because its photoelectric conversion efficiency is gradually close to that of mono-crystalline silicon solar cell. So the production of multi-crystalline silicon solar cell is increasing gradually and it will exceed that of mono-crystalline silicon solar cell finally, conforming to the international development trend. In this sense, multi-crystalline silicon raw materials for solar cell use have a broad market space.
The majority of Chinese solar enterprises are engaged in assembling solar cells, whose profit is very thin. The upstream crystalline silicon processing and silicon cell production has a fat profit. Due to the shortage of silicon processing resources, China had to import silicon raw materials in bulk every year. So a company of a complete industrial chain is undoubtedly to be wooed by the market. China now has obtained the matured commercial photovoltaic production technology and some companies have put it into production.
China Nanbo Group Co., Ltd. has got on the new energy bus. It signed a memorandum of building a green energy industry park in Dongguan. Mainly composed of three kinds of projects, that is, solar cell project, solar glass and ultra-white glass project, and energy-saving building glass project, the industry park is aimed to develop in an all-round way the energy-saving and renewable energy industries that are particularly encouraged and supported by the state policies. With total investment to reach four billion yuan, the industry park will cover an area of more than 700 mu (one hectare equals 15 mu). After completed and put into production, it is expected to generate annual output value of nine billion yuan.
Generally, large-scale development speed of China's solar energy industry is not fast enough, but it is predicted to have a broad development prospect.
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