To learn more what this would mean for China's domestic solar prospects, we turned to Chris Brown, North America general manager of Asia Cleantech Gateway. Below is how he sees the current market and the challenges ahead.

China’s National Energy Administration (NEA) last week announced it is aiming for the country’s installed solar power generating capacity to reach 15 GW by 2015. This is a 50 percent increase from its previous plan.

This new target marks a new urgency in China’s attempts to create a domestic solar market.  Right now China’s production capacity is about 30 to 40 GW. Yet, for this year, China’s market size is about 2 GW. Being an exporter of solar modules while their domestic energy needs are so serious has been a sore spot to Beijing for the last five or six years.

The current PV overcapacity has exacerbated the situation and Beijing is responding with new urgency. China sees becoming a major consumer of the solar products as the best way to address the problem.

How successful China will be developing its solar market is debatable but the intention, focus and allocation of funds is clear. In 2011, China has addressed two of the key needs to creating a strong domestic market — a unified feed-in tariff and a transmission infrastructure that can handle renewable energy.

In July, China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) announced its plans to create a unified, nation-wide feed-in tariff. There will be problems implementing the FiT. The proposed rate is nowhere near enough for PV projects in many parts of the country.

As part of new solar capacity target plan, the NEA will seek international help in building new a transmission infrastructure. It acknowledged that much of the problem with getting the utility-level renewable energy projects connected to the grid has been a lack of engineering expertise.

Foreign cleantech investment and technological expertise have been welcome but management less so. Allowing foreigners working with Chinese engineers on building new UHV lines shows a new openness and honesty in addressing the transmission problem.

China’s energy market is disjointed and implementing nation-wide renewable energy policy is difficult. Last week’s new solar target, however, is another indication that Beijing is urgently working to become a major consumer of its own solar products.

SOME COMMENTS:

Alright, Ok. I think this is only a good thing for the industry. While I prefer to support domestic manufacturing, I like the idea of well-made $1/Watt Trina Modules. There; I said it.

Good point, Karl-Friederich, about per capita.

I also agree that the rising China solar market will be a good thing for the industry.

Liu Qi, the deputy director of China's National Energy Administration, last week acknowledged that much of the problem with getting the utility-level renewable energy projects connected to the grid has been a lack of engineering expertise, especially in the remote areas. Li Qi says that now China is will seek more international cooperation in solving this problem.

Step by step to a better world. Now let's try to reach the 2020 goals in Europe.

how much of the 650 TWh of electricity that you have classified as renewable was generated with solar?

I'll answer the question from the statistics compiled by the US Energy Information Agency - 0.428 TWh.

http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/iedindex3.cfm?tid=6&pid=36&aid=12&cid=regions&syid=2005&eyid=2009&unit=BKWH

Production numbers are hard to find with regard to solar electricity. There is a reason why it is almost impossible to get any solar energy advocate to discuss actual energy production instead of 'capacity'. It is easy to fudge on capacity, but what counts to the people who are expecting their panels to provide a useful output is how much power they deliver.

If you have ever actually owned a solar array for a substantial length of time, you will realize that the answer is not very much, no matter how big the array might be or how pretty it looks for the magazine photos or investor brochures.

...the only reason the nuclear industry exists at all in the US is because it was given a huge Get Out Of Jail Free card in the form of the Price-Anderson Act. (He also doesn't mention that no US nuke plant has come in on budget.) Even with the huge mulligan of Price-Anderson, few banks want to touch nukers or even coal plants nowadays because of all the not-so-hidden costs associated with nuclear, coal and other dirty energy; that's why wind and solar have taken off in the past decade.

For the price of the cost overruns on one nuke plant, we could have had a beefed-up national electrical grid. For the cost of a couple of nukers (typically $10 to $20 billion, that's 'billion' with a B), we could have had a few thousand miles of solar roadways tested and installed (see also http://www.solarroadways.com) to serve as road, power station, and emergency warning system. But noooooo.

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