Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai and Shaanxi are the most suitable regions and provinces in Northwest China for solar photovoltaic installations, said Shen Yanbo, an expert from the National Climate Center.
For ground-mounted projects, the Chinese government is paying a feed-in tariff for the electricity generated, instead of a subsidy based on the projects’ capacity.
China has set a cost of CNY1.09 per kWh for a 10 MW solar PV power plant in Dunhuang, almost three times the rate paid by coal-fired power plants.
The subsidized price of 1.09 yuan is not ideal for solar panel players to make money from these projects, said Li Junfeng, deputy director of the Energy Research institute under the National Development and Reform Commission. The profitable price would be between 1.3 yuan per kWh and 1.5 yuan per kWh, depending on different producers.
The China government is still required to alter the feed-in tariff if the domestic photovoltaic market had to develop faster, Junfeng said.
