China Readying Large Feed-In Tariff for Utility-Scale Solar Power
photo: Wayne National Forest via flickr
China fairly recently announced a renewable energy standard of 20% by 2020. Now, Renewable Energy World reports, the nation is going to launch a feed-in tariff for utility-scale solar power projects that will dwarf previous government support: REW cites Suntech as saying the new feed-in tariff will likely be between 1.09 and 1.5 yuan ($0.16-0.22) per kilowatt-hour of electricity.
For sake of comparison, South Africa's feed-in tariff for solar power, one of the highest in the world, is up around $0.23/kWh.
Suntech chairman Zhengrong Shi said,
While we're still awaiting clarification on some of the policy details, these programs are generating a significant amount of interest in the domestic Chinese solar market, and have the potential to drive the market by at least 100-200 MW per year.China Has Small Amount of Grid-Tied Solar PowerConsidering that at the start of this year China has less than 100 MW of grid-tied solar power, that sort of market stimulus is pretty significant.
That said, a number of large-scale solar power projects are underway in China, including the first 30 MW of a planned 1,000 MW project the Qaidam Basin, and a 166 MW solar power plant in Yunnan province.
via: Renewable Energy WorldChina, Solar Power China Announces New Solar Power SubsidiesChina Experiments With Centralized Thermal-Solar Power166 MW Solar Power Project Will Be China's Largest
