59 county-level regions in east China’s Jiangsu province were included in the national county-level rooftop distributed photovoltaic development pilot list announced by the National Energy Administration, ranking third in the country in terms of number.
According to the plan, the regions included in the pilot program will vigorously promote rooftop distributed photovoltaics, improve the energy structure, and promote local regions to take the lead in achieving the goals of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality.
Large tracts of blue photovoltaic power generation panels are installed on the roof of a factory in the Changzhou Zhonglou Economic Development Zone.
However, the company has been vexed about the operating costs resulting from the large amount of power consumption,but the situation has been significantly improved since the the installation of rooftop photovoltaics early this year.
"We used to be subjected to rising operating costs from electricity use and we had to pay 30 thousand-40 thousand yuan in monthly electricity bills. Since putting into operation 400 kilowatts of rooftop photovoltaics, we have greatly reduced electricity bills while the surplus electricity can be sold to the State Grid," said Qu Xianping, Deputy General Manager of Changdafeng Power Technology Co., Ltd.
Distributed photovoltaic power generation is a green energy production method that directly converts solar energy into electrical energy, and the roof of a building is its most important place for application.
Compared with centralized photovoltaic development, which is constrained by land resources, rooftop distributed photovoltaics are more intensive and efficient in terms of flexible development, rich resources, and local consumption.
Photovoltaic panels installed on the roof of the plant in the Hongqi Village SME Park in Xiangshui County can generate 900 thousand kWh of electricity each year and a revenue of nearly one million yuan, of which 20% is earmarked for the collective income of Hongqi Village, and the rest is used for low-income households in the village to help them alleviate poverty.
At present, Jiangsu's photovoltaic installed capacity exceeds 18 million kilowatts, accounting for about 12% of the province's entire power generation installed capacity, and half of the total photovoltaic installed capacity is distributed photovoltaic installed capacity.
According to the pilot plan, Jiangsu will advance distributed photovoltaic installations in batches in an orderly manner by selecting a county-level region in each prefecture-level city so as to benefit more people.
During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, Jiangsu will strive to install about 10 million kilowatts of installed rooftop distributed photovoltaic grid-connected capacity.
"Due to the large population and limited land, Jiangsu does not have much potential and room to promote centralized photovoltaics. In the future we will advance the installation county by county and with greater efforts and greater determination promote the optimization of the energy structure and ensure a win-win pattern in which government plans investment entities develops and operates and the people benefit," said Lai Li, Director of Energy Resources Research Institute, Jiangsu Strategy and Development Research Center.
