Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 56 (2016) 1032–1043

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Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rser

Characteristics and prospective of China's PV development route:

Based on data of world PV industry 2000–2010
Xu Ruhang n
School of Economics and Management, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China

art ic l e i nf o a b s t r a c t

Article history: China wishes to put more efforts in achieving its energy saving and emission reduction targets, for which
Received 16 July 2014 photovoltaic (PV) power generation has showed great potential in many economic entities around the
Accepted 10 December 2015 world. China also shows a strong sign of renewable energy booming: wind power and photovoltaic
Available online 29 December 2015
installed capacity soared in recent years. Actually, many countries around the world especially European
Keywords: countries have a longer history than China in PV application. But China has a unique energy industry
PV industry development route, which may lead to a different PV prospective. To determine the uniqueness of China's
Industry characteristics PV development, data from China and 26 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
Correlation analysis (OECD) countries are collected. The Characteristics of China's PV industry is quantified and extracted in
Cluster analysis
this paper. Indicators are selected from aspects of energy source, energy generation and energy con-
Characteristic quantification
sumption. Indicator distribution analysis, correlation analysis, and country cluster analysis methods are
applied. 3 major characteristics of China's PV industry are extracted. Based on the key findings of this
paper, it can be concluded that some inertial elements in the energy industry may be the biggest
obstacles for China's PV development, and off-grid and distributed PV solutions are suggested to be
better ways than concentrated PV power generation.
& 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1033
2. The manifestations of the characteristics of China's PV development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1033
2.1. Tremendous energy resources reserves and energy consumption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1033
2.2. Large PV module production. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1033
2.3. The small PV installs in China. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1034
2.4. Comparison between PV and other forms of renewable energy in China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1034
3. Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1035
3.1. Indicator selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1035
3.2. Data acquisition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1035
3.3. Data preprocessing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1035
3.4. Correlation calculation of the indicators. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1035
3.5. Cluster analysis of different countries' PV industries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1036
4. Results and analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1036
4.1. Indicator distributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1036
4.2. Indicator correlations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1036
4.3. The quantitative expression of China's PV development characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1038
4.3.1. China's position in each indicator distributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1038
4.3.2. China's contributions to the indicator correlations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1039
4.3.3. China's position in the clusters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1040
4.4. Analysis of the characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1040
4.4.1. Characteristic 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1040

n
Tel.: þ 86 15010066179.
E-mail address: sdxu8888@gmail.com

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2015.12.018
1364-0321/& 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 X. Ruhang / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 56 (2016) 1032–1043
4.4.2. Characteristic 2 .......................................................................................
4.4.3. Characteristic 3 .......................................................................................
5. Conclusion and suggestion . . . . .......................................................................................
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .......................................................................................
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .......................................................................................
1. Introduction
As modern industry develops, global energy shortage and air
pollution become severe problems, which pushes the world to
accelerate alternative energy resources development. Solar energy
is widely available. It is a common view that solar energy has great
potential in fossil fuel replacement and photovoltaic (PV) tech-
nology shows great potential in solar energy utilization. Based on
the photovoltaic effect, solar cells directly convert solar energy
into electricity, which is a pollution-free procedure. Since the
booming of PV technology, it has been widely applied for its
cleanness, convenience and safety.
With the rapid development of PV technology, two major ways
of PV power generation were proposed. PV system can be divided
into off-grid power system and grid-connected power system. In
the former, PV cells convert solar energy to electricity under the
condition of solar irradiation. And power is transmitted to the load
through charge and discharge controller, while storage battery
group are charged at the same time; without irradiation, it is the
storage battery group that supply power to the direct current (DC)
load through the controller. When alternating current (AC) load
need to be power-supplied, the DC from the battery group is
converted into AC by the independent inverter.
Grid-connected PV system is connected with the power grid to
jointly generate power with other power sources. With irradiation,
the inverter converts the DC generated by PV system into a sinu-
soidal AC, which can be supplied directly to the AC load. In this
procedure, surplus electricity is transmitted to the grid, which in
this case acts as a battery for the system. In another form of grid-
connected PV system, the whole electricity generated is trans-
mitted directly to the grid, and the loads receive electricity merely
from the grid.
No matter in what form the PV system is, it always consists of
three major components, which are solar panels (components),
controllers and inverters. Among all, the most basic element is the
solar cells. Technically the solar cells can be divided into four
types: the single-crystalline silicon, polycrystalline silicon, amor-
phous silicon and thin-film.
Applications of PV began in the 1970s. This technology was on
trial until the 1990s, and various countries introduced incentives
to support early deployment of PV systems. In 1995, the Japanese
70,000 solar roofs program began, initially providing 50% subsidy
of the cost for installed grid-connected PV systems. The German
100,000 solar roofs program began in 1999, followed by the
Renewable Energy law in 2000, which offered a 0.5 €/kWh feed-
in-tariff on installed systems for 20 years [1].
The growth of the global PV market has been impressive since
2003, with an average annual growth rate of 40% in 2009, and
about 135% in 2010. The cumulative installed global PV capacity
grew from 0.1 GW in 1992 to 40 GW at the end of 2010.
Europe has played the leading role in PV market from 2000. But
in recent years, it looks like that Europe's leading role is coming to
an end. In 2011, Europe accounted for 74% of the world's new PV
installations; in 2012 this number was around 55%; in 2013 the
number declined to 37.8% [1].
Dating back to 2008, China's PV capacity started its rapid
growth. In 2013, yearly installed PV capacity in China has reached
1033
1040
1041
1041
1042
1042
11.3 GW, which rank first in the world. But in fact the PV capacity
in China is affected by many unique factors compared with other
countries, which defines its uniqueness in the world PV market.
2. The manifestations of the characteristics of China's PV
development
2.1. Tremendous energy resources reserves and energy consumption
Judging from natural resources, it is undisputed that China
possesses large amounts of solar energy. During 30 years within
1971–2000, the average amount of yearly solar irradiation is
between 1050 and 2450 kW h/m2. The energy absorbable from
solar radiation each year is equal to 170 billion tons of standard coal.
Based on the data published by National Energy Board of China,
China has entered accelerating development period of Indus-
trialization and urbanization. Energy demand is undeniably rising.
At present, China is one of the world's major energy consumer and
greenhouse gas emissions countries. China's energy consumption
in 2030 is estimated to be 8.79 billion tons, which is close to
4 times as large as that in 2005. This means that under the present
energy efficiency, the booming of the economy strongly depends
on huge energy consumption [2].
By 2020, China's energy intensity will reach 5.8 GJ/$, which
equals to the present advanced level of Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. And the total
energy demand will be at 96 EJ. Predictably, China retains big
needs for energy to meet the demands of rapid economic growth.
Meanwhile, the demand for electricity will rise increasingly. By
2035, China's demand for electricity will account for 27.2% of the
world. And the average annual compound growth rate of this data
will reach 3.8%, which is far over 2.1%, the average of the world.
However, under the joint burden of energy crisis and climate
change, China has made a commitment to the world that during
1990 and 2005, China's carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP
were reduced by 46%. In the context of that, China has set a new
target of cutting carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 40–
45% by 2020 compare to the 2005 level.
2.2. Large PV module production
In PV market, the leading market varies through years. In 1998,
Japan surpassed the United States. Then Germany took the second
position in 2001, and overtook Japan in 2003, since that time it has
been the market leader. But till these days, China's PV modules
production ability has been growing rapidly [3]. In the course of
just a decade's time, China's market share of PV production grew
from about 1% in 2001 to around 45% of the world total in 2010 [4].
Due to the dramatically increasing demand for PV by European
countries since 2004. China's PV production has experienced
dramatic growth. And manufacturing capacity has spread to all
fronts of the supply chain: from polysilicon, wafers to cells and
modules. In 2007, China took the world's number one position in
solar cell manufacturing with a total production of over 1 GW [5].
In 2011, China manufactured 21 GW of solar cells, representing 60%
of the global total production. Out of the top 15 solar PV module
1034 X. Ruhang / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 56 (2016) 1032–1043
Table 1
China's PV module production variation 2008–2011 [4].
2008 2009 2010
Chinaa 2525 2382 10,500
Worlda 6850 10,600 20,500
Proportion (%) 36.86 22.47 51.22
a
Unit: MW.
manufacturers in the world, 9 were Chinese companies which took
a share of 30% in the world [6]. Production change of PV module
during 2008–2011 in China is shown in Table 1.
But European countries have been cutting subsidies for solar
applications during the recent years. From 2010, main solar
application companies in Europe are quitting the market. From
July 1st, 2010, German subsidy for rooftop PV systems has been
reduced by 13%. And from October 1st, 2011, the total subsidy is
further reduced by 3%. In September, 2011, Czech declared that by
March 2012, solar power plants built on agricultural land will no
longer receive any government subsidies. From December 31st,
2011, Italy decided to cut subsidies for solar photovoltaic projects
[7]. Under this condition, Chinese government tends to pay more
attention towards the development of domestic market to absorb
its huge manufacturing capacity.
2.3. The small PV installs in China
Note that the proportion of PV installs in China is far less than
the proportion of China-made PV modules in the PV market
around the world. In 2007, primary energy consumption has
reached 2.66 billion tons of standard coal, which is 13 million tons
of coal more than that in 2000. Coal accounted for more than 70%
of total energy consumption, oil accounted for 23%, gas accounted
for 3.34% [8,9]. By the end of 2010, thermal power still dominates
power generation judging from the total installed capacity.
Although the proportion of non-fossil energy in total installed
capacity reached 26.6% in 2013: a total generating capacity of
786.2 billion kW, the dominated energy of non-fossil energy is still
hydropower. The structure of Chinese power generating capacity is
greatly different from Europe's structure as shown in Table 2.
PV and wind energy in recent years, has led the development of
newly installed power generating capacity in Europe. In 2010,
installed capacity of PV ranks No.1 in European newly installed
renewable energy capacity. According to the target that renewable
energy should provide 20% of the total European energy supply by
2020, the European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA)
indicates that PV should provide up to 12% of electricity supply in
Europe before 2020, which indicates that European PV industry
would be given a big boost during the next ten years. On the
contrary, hydropower is the dominant non-fossil energy in China
at present. China's installed capacities of wind power and nuclear
power greatly increased, but the developing speed of PV is rela-
tively low [10].
2.4. Comparison between PV and other forms of renewable energy in
China
China is one of the top hydro energy reservation countries.
Revers in China have theoretically about up to 694 million kW
hydro energy reservations a year, which can theoretically generate
6080 billion kWh electricity [11].
China's renewable energy sources (RES) power generation has
great reliance on hydro power. 1/4 of the total power generating
capacities are from RES in China, among which over 80% is hydro
energy capacities. To deal with climate change, government of
Table 2
The differences of newly installed capacity between China and Europe 2010 [5].
2011 PV Wind Hydro Nuclear Fossil
21,000 Chinaa 0.4 15.3 18.2 1.9 64.2
35,000 Europea 22.4 16.8 0.4 0.3 58.8
60.00
a
Unit: %.
China has set explicit goals for energy saving and emission
reduction: the primary energy source consumption should con-
tains at least 15% non-fossil energy sources by 2020; at the same
time the CO2 emission per GDP should be reduced by 40–45%
compared to 2005 [12]. Development of pumped-storage power
station becomes an obvious choice for the security and stability of
the power gird before any RES capacities are widely installed, like
wind, solar and ocean [13]. Therefore, to realize the commitment
Chinese government made in the Copenhagen conference, the
government is going to keep its hydropower reliance. Based on the
twelfth five year plan of hydro power, the newly increased hydro
power capacity should reach 67 million kW [14]. In the twelfth five
year plan period, the newly under-construction hydropower pro-
jects reached 0.12 billion kW, that is 24 million kW per year. This
5-year period has the largest scale and amount of under-
construction hydropower projects. Therefore, unlike some hydro
lacking countries, it is questionable about the importance of PV
power generation in the energy saving and emission reduction
plan of Chinese government.
In 2010, additional installed capacity of wind power reached
35.8 GW, with the cumulative installation capacity reached
194.4 GW, which is 22.5% more than the former year. It can be seen
that wind power capacity gradually dominates the newly installed
RES capacities in countries such as China, India and Brazil. Among
them, China occupied half of the increased capacity, with wind
power capacity of 16 GW. In 2010, China surpassed the United
States with the cumulative installation capacity of 41.8 GW, which
accounts for 21.5% of the world's total, and became top 1 in the
world's installed capacity of wind power [15].
By the end of 2011, China's newly installed capacity of wind
power has reached 56.4 GW, which ranks first in the world for
3 years consecutively. And wind power capacity connected to the
grid, with an average annual growth rate of 85.8%, reached
46.2 GW, which is 22.1 times as large as that in 2006 [16].
The development of China's wind turbines capacity also
boomed. At the end of 2000, there were only about 10 wind tur-
bine manufacturers in China, together holding a domestic market
share of less than 10%. Until 2005, more than 70% of the wind
power equipment was imported. However, in 2011, there were
more than 70 domestic wind turbine manufacturers. Four Chinese
companies, Goldwind, Sinovel, United Power and Mingyang saw
strong growth and were among the world's Top 10 wind turbine
manufacturers, together representing 26.7% of the world total [17].
It can clearly be seen that development of wind power equip-
ment manufacturing and wind power capacity installation in
China has been increasing rapidly. Unlike PV productions were
mostly supplied to the overseas markets, wind turbine equipment
production capacities in China concentrated on the domestic
market.
From 2006, China promulgated the Renewable Energy Law,
when the rapid development of wind power began. However the
development of PV did not accelerate until three years after that.
The wind and PV installed capacity variation is showed in Fig. 1.
In brief, the manifestations of PV industry development in
China can be concluded as follows.
● China itself possesses large amounts of solar energy.
 X. Ruhang / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 56 (2016) 1032–1043 1035

● China has enormous manufacturing capacity of the PV equipment. 3.3. Data preprocessing
● Development of PV is relatively slow, and PV's role in the targets
of energy saving and emissions reducing is not clear. The number Stotal is used to represent the total solar energy of a
country.
P
N
Spo int
3. Methodology Savg ¼ i ¼ 1 ð1Þ
N
3.1. Indicator selection Stotal ¼ Savg UA ð2Þ

This paper used quantitative methods to determine the PV
development characteristics of China. To make fully data-
supported analysis, indicators are selected from three important
aspects of PV industry, which are Energy Source, Energy Con-
sumption and Energy Generation. To determine the characteristics,
data of different countries has to be collected and compared. The
indicators are made to be ratios so as to do cross comparison of the
same industry character in different countries. The indicator
selection is shown in Table 3.
Savg stands for the average point value, the unit of which is
kW h/m2/day, within a certain country's national boundaries. N
stands for the total point amount in the country. A stands for the
country's national territorial area. The software ArcGIS (a brand of
ESRI Corporation) is used to do the calculation. Krieg interpolation
method is used to make a global solar distribution map as shown
in Fig. 2.
Before any data processing, to avoid any error brought by
directly comparison between the absolute values of two indicators,
uniformization has to be done. The uniformization of the original
data is described as follows.

3.2. Data acquisition I ij

I iuni j ¼   ð3Þ
Max I ij
Data of China and 26 OECD countries are collected [1]. The
global data sets of solar energy parameters are collected [18]. The I i refers to the NO.j value of the I i indicator. I iuni j refers to the
original global solar data is described as geographic coordinate uniformed value of the I ij value.
system point values, which are average values of a 22-year period
(July 1983–June 2005). 3.4. Correlation calculation of the indicators

30 As not all the indicators follow normal distribution, Spearman's

rank correlation coefficient is used to analyze the correlation
25 between each two indicators. Spearman's rank correlation coeffi-
cient is a non-parameter correlation estimation method, describ-
20 ing the correlation of two variables assuming the correlation is
monotonic function. If one of the variable is a strict monotonic
function of another, then the Spearman correlation value is þ1 or
% 15
 1, which is called complete Spearman correlation.
Spearman's rank correlation coefficient has two good char-
10 acters to deal with the problem. (1) as long as the relation between
variable X and Y is monotonic, X and Y have complete Spearman
5 correlation; (2) normal distribution of the variables is not needed.
Assuming original data xi and yi is organized by their value-
0 size. The sequence is: from big value to small value. x0i and y0i is the
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 new position after the arrangement, which is called the ranks of xi
Wind PV and yi .

Fig. 1. The wind and PV installed capacity variation in China [6].

di ¼ x0i  y0i ð4Þ

Table 3
The Indicator selection.a

Code Expression (Unit) Aspect Description Meaning

I1 Renewables/TPES (%) Generation Energy generated by renewable sources divided by The importance of renewable energy sources in the
total primary energy supply whole energy generation industry
b
I2 TPES/GDP (toe per thousand Consumption Total primary energy supply divided by Gross The reliance of GDP on energy
2005 US dollars) Domestic Product
I3 TPES/population (toe per capita) Consumption Total primary energy supply divided by population Energy consumption per capita
amount
I4 Renewable Electric/Total Electric Generation Renewable energy sources generated Electric quan- The importance of renewable energy sources in the
(%) tity divided by total generated quantity whole power generation amount
I5 PV Capacity/Renewable Capacity Generation PV installed capacity divided by all renewable The importance of PV in the whole renewable energy
(%) installed capacity industry
I6 Land solar/PV Capacity (kW h/ Source Total land solar energy amount divided by PV The utilization of solar by PV
m2/day/kw) installed capacity

a
All data is collected by year.
b
Tonne of oil equivalent.
1036 X. Ruhang / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 56 (2016) 1032–1043

Fig. 2. Global solar irradiation distribution map.

di is defined as the difference between the ranks. (2) Step 2. Define the clusters which have the smallest distances
When there is no same di value: with each other as a new cluster. If there is only one cluster
P 2 left, this process is finished. If there is more than one cluster,
6 di go to step 1.
ρs ¼ 1  ð5Þ
nðn2 1Þ
The cluster results of year 2000, 2008, 2009 and 2010 are as
ρs is Spearman's rank correlation coefficient. n is the total
shown in Fig. 3 (some countries' data missing in 2000).
variable amount.
When there are same di values:
P
n
4. Results and analysis
ðxi xÞðyi yÞ
i¼1
ρs ¼ sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ð6Þ
P n Pn 4.1. Indicator distributions
ðxi  xÞ2 ðyi yÞ
i¼1 i¼1
This paper checked the distribution of all 6 indicators. The
2-tailed test of significance is used. results are as shown in Fig. 4. It can be seen that only I1, I2 and I3
are normally distributed, while I4, I5 and I6 do not. The normal
3.5. Cluster analysis of different countries' PV industries distributions of I1 (Renewables/TPES), I2 (TPES/GDP) and I3 (TPES/
population) indicates that the total renewable energy develop-
To analyze the characteristics of China's PV development, sys- ment, total energy utilization efficiency and energy consumption
tem cluster analysis is applied. To avoid interference of high cor- per capita is normally distributed in these countries in the first
relation of the indicators, the highest correlative indicator I1 is decade of 21st century. This phenomenon can be seen as the
excluded in cluster analysis. baseline character of the energy industry. However, it can be seen
The cluster method can be briefly described in 2 steps. that renewable power generation is slightly less developed in the
whole energy industry (I4). What's more, PV power generation is
(1) Step 1. Calculate the distance between each cluster (each less important in renewable energy industry (I5). Most impor-
single sample can be seen as one cluster in the beginning). tantly, it can be seen that solar energy utilization in PV industry is
Square Euclidean Distance is used in this paper, which can be mostly uneven in these countries, and the solar energy utilization
described as: ratio is very concentrated.
X 2
dðx; yÞ ¼ xi  yi ð7Þ
i
4.2. Indicator correlations

Centroid distance is applied to measure sample distance, which The correlation analysis result is as shown in Fig. 5 and Table 4.
can be described as: If consider the significance level as 0.01, it can be seen that
ðpÞ ðqÞ some indicators show correlation with one another.
Dpq ¼ dðX ;X Þ ð8Þ
ðpÞ (1) I1 (Renewables/TPES) and I4 (Renewable Electric/Total Electric)
Dpq is the distance between cluster p and cluster q. X is the
ðqÞ I1 and I4 show high positive correlation with high significance
centroid of cluster p, X is the centroid of cluster q. level (correlation level 0.865, significance value 0). It can be
The centroid of a single cluster can be described as: explained that electricity generation is the major way the
renewable energy sources (RES) contribute to energy production.
X ¼ ðx1 ; x2 :::xl Þ ð9Þ
(2) I1 (Renewables/TPES) and I5 (PV Capacity/Renewable Capacity)
P
m I1 and I5 show negative correlation with high significance level
Among which xk ¼ m
1
xk i , xk is the kth component of the
i¼1 (correlation level  0.524, significance value 1.88E08). It can
centroid. be explained that PV is not the major way to provide RES
 X. Ruhang / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 56 (2016) 1032–1043 1037

Fig.3. The cluster results of year 2000, 2008, 2009 and 2010.

generated power. To raise the RES generated power, it is other
sources to be added instead of PV.
(3) I2 (TPES/GDP) and I4 (Renewable Electric/Total Electric)
I2 and I4 show weak negative correlation with high sig-
nificance level (correlation level  0.413, significance value
1.78E  05). It can be explained that if a country has lower
energy-GDP efficiency, then this country is likely to rely on
non-renewable energy sources.
(4) I4 (Renewable Electric/Total Electric) and I5 (PV Capacity/
Renewable Capacity)
I4 and I5 show negative correlation with high significance level
(correlation level  0.459, significance value 1.39E 06). It can
be explained that the more proportion of RES take in power
generation is, likely the less power is generated from PV, which
means that PV is not the major way of RES power generation.
(5) I5 (PV Capacity/Renewable Capacity) and I6 (Land solar/PV
Capacity)
I5 and I6 show relatively high correlation with high significance
level (correlation level  0.770, significance value 0). This is a very
interesting phenomenon. With a certain amount of PV installed
capacity, the less proportion of PV in RES capacity is, the more land
1038 X. Ruhang / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 56 (2016) 1032–1043

solar energy surplus the PV capacity, which means that countries
with less land solar energy source tend to develop more PV capacity.
4.3. The quantitative expression of China's PV development
characteristics
4.3.1. China's position in each indicator distributions
China's positions in each indicator distribution are as shown
in Fig. 6. In the distribution of I1, China almost stayed in the
center, which means that RES produced energy took up small
proportion in the total energy production. Although the pro-
portion increased in 2000–2010, but the increasing speed is
relatively small.
In the distribution of I2, China stayed in a unique position. It
can be concluded that the energy consumption per GDP is extre-
mely higher than others, which means that for a long time, the
GDP growth of China is highly dependent on energy.

Fig. 4. The indicator distributions.

Fig. 5. Scatter matrix of indicator correlations.

 X. Ruhang / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 56 (2016) 1032–1043 1039

Table 4
Indicator correlations.

I1 I2 I3 I4 I5 I6

I1 Spearman Corr. 1  0.18651  0.06306 0.86493  0.52393 0.37823

Sig. – 0.06184 0.531 0 1.88E  08 9.63E  05
I2 Spearman Corr.  0.18651 1 0.05471  0.41286  0.01165 0.33267
Sig. 0.06184 – 0.58683 1.78E  05 0.90794 6.76E  04
I3 Spearman Corr.  0.06306 0.05471 1 0.1218  0.06153  0.03704
Sig. 0.531 0.58683 – 0.22501 0.541 0.71308
I4 Spearman Corr. 0.86493  0.41286 0.1218 1 -0.45889 0.18218
Sig. 0.00E þ00 1.78E  05 0.22501 – 1.39E  06 0.06825
I5 Spearman Corr.  0.52393  0.01165  0.06153  0.45889 1  0.77072
Sig. 1.88E  08 0.90794 0.541 1.39E  06 – 0
I6 Spearman Corr. 0.37823 0.33267  0.03704 0.18218  0.77072 1
Sig. 9.63E  05 6.76E  04 0.71308 0.06825 0 –

Fig. 6. China's position in indictor distributions.

In the distribution of I3, the position of China states that China
had a low TPES per capita value. It can be concluded that the
population pressure on China economy is enormous.
In the distribution of I4, the position of China states that China,
like most of the countries, has a relatively small RES generated
power scale.
In the distribution of I5, the position of China states that China,
like most of the countries, has small PV proportion of RES installed
capacity.
In the distribution of I5, the position of China states that China
is trying to increase the use ratio of solar power by raise the PV
capacity. But the gap between China and most of the countries is
still large.
4.3.2. China's contributions to the indicator correlations
To study the PV development characteristics of China, the
correlation analysis without China is done. The result is as shown
in Table 5. The correlation results with and without China are
compared. To acquire cooperation baseline, several countries have
been processed in the same way. The comparison result is as
shown in Table 6. It can be seen that several indicator correlation
changed after data of China is added, on the condition of sig-
nificance satisfaction
It can be seen that the correlation between I1 and I4 slightly
decreased after data of China is added. It can be explained that
although in all the selected countries renewable energy is most
used for power generation, China shows an opposite trend.
It can be seen that the correlation between I1 and I5, I5 and I6
almost stayed the same after data of China is added. It can be
explained that China shows less specificity in that PV do not play
an important role in energy production, and that countries with
less land solar energy source tend to develop more PV capacity.
It can be seen that the correlation between I2 and I4 greatly
increased after data of China is added. It can be explained that
compared with other countries China has an obvious trend, which
is with lower energy-GDP efficiency, China is likely to rely on non-
renewable energy sources.
1040 X. Ruhang / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 56 (2016) 1032–1043

Table 5
Indicator correlations without data of China.

I1 I2 I3 I4 I5 I6

I1 Spearman Corr. 1  0.20805  0.05141 0.91167  0.52344 0.39443

Sig. – 0.04086 0.61701 0 3.77E 08 6.40E  05
I2 Spearman Corr.  0.20805 1 0.18757  0.34468 0.04294 0.2615
Sig. 0.04086 – 0.0658 5.46E  04 0.6762 0.00967
I3 Spearman Corr.  0.05141 0.18757 1 0.03379  0.11672 0.05834
Sig. 0.61701 0.0658 – 0.74249 0.25491 0.57028
I4 Spearman Corr. 0.91167  0.34468 0.03379 1  0.52827 0.27867
Sig. 0.00E þ 00 5.46E  04 0.74249 – 2.68E-08 0.00571
I5 Spearman Corr.  0.52344 0.04294  0.11672  0.52827 1  0.77171
Sig. 3.77E 08 0.6762 0.25491 2.68E  08 – 0
I6 Spearman Corr. 0.39443 0.2615 0.05834 0.27867  0.77171 1
Sig. 6.40E  05 0.00967 0.57028 0.00571 0 –

Table 6 PV market [10]. We can see that most European countries were
Countries' contributions to indicator correlations. more easily identified in one cluster, while China's distance with
the European cluster is large. Under this condition, we can see
I1–I4 I1–I5 I2–I4 I4–I5 I5–I6 China always shows a unique development path of PV industry,
All 0.86493  0.52393  0.41286  0.45889  0.77072
what's more, of the whole energy industry.
Without China 0.91167  0.52344  0.34468  0.52827  0.77171
Correlation Change  5.127% 0.094% 19.781%  13.133%  0.128% 4.4. Analysis of the characteristics
(without China)
Without Germany 0.85916  0.55818  0.41500  0.48252  0.75716
Correlation Change 0.672%  6.136%  0.516%  4.897% 1.791%
4.4.1. Characteristic 1
(without The explanation for this character is that PV accounts for a low
Germany) proportion of renewable energy in general around the world
Without Japan 0.88012  0.51770  0.42332  0.46215  0.76892 regardless of capacity or actual generation. If the capacity or power
Correlation Change  1.726% 1.203%  2.471%  0.705% 0.234%
generation of the renewable energy increased, some other type of
(without Japan)
Without Spain 0.85942  0.56207  0.41094  0.49442  0.76223 renewable energy would increase faster than PV. As mentioned in
Correlation Change 0.641%  6.786% 0.467%  7.186% 1.114% Section 2.4, it is a foundational fact of the unbalanced and single-
(without Spain) dominant renewable energy development of China that hydro-
Without Norway 0.84752  0.46577  0.36090  0.39174  0.77917 electric power is a long-term dominant RES form.
Correlation Change 2.054% 12.487% 14.397% 17.141%  1.084%
(without
In recent years, it is encouraged to increase PV capacity in
Norway) China. The government introduces a series of incentive policies:
the Township Electrification Program (2002); Energy Law (2006)
and relevant renewable energy policies (2006–2008); the Rooftop
It can be seen that the correlation between I4 and I5 decreased Subsidy Program (2009); the Golden Sun Demonstration Program
after data of China is added. On the other side, Norway shows (2009); the PV Concession Program (2009); the most recent
different trend. In fact, over 99% of the RES of Norway consists of policies—the national Feed-in tariff (FIT) scheme (2011); the 12th
hydro, Biofuels and renewable wastes, and PV rarely increased. Five Year Plan for Renewable Energy Development (2012) as well
China shows an opposite trend to Norway, not because PV takes up as the free connection service Policy (2012) [19]. As mentioned
great proportion in power generating. China still did not have above, although China's PV capacity is gradually increasing, the
significant high PV proportion in RES power generation, because in overall size of PV installs still remains relatively small. In 2011,
China's PV installed capacity increased while other RES like wind with the rapid increase of the PV capacity, China only occupied
capacity increased more. 5.64% of global PV installs, which is in a sharp contrast with Chi-
It can be concluded that the PV industry in China has Char- na's large proportion of PV module production [20,21].
acteristics of both generality and specificity in the global PV PV in 2012 was the number-one electricity source in the EU in
industry development. terms of newly installed capacity, with 16.7 GW connected to the
grid, among which 12 GW is rooftop PV and 4.7 GW is Utility-scale
● Characteristic 1:PV shows less importance in RES energy pro- PV. PV capacity of China is 4.5 GW, 12 GW and 14 GW in 2012,
duction industry. This is a character of generality, and China 2013, and 2014, while wind power capacity of China is 13 GW,
showed no exception. 16 GW, and 18 GW. Therefore, although this characteristic gradu-
● Characteristic 2:Some of PV-utilized countries, including China, ally turned indistinctive, the current situation is likely to remain
show a trend that the smaller the countries solar reserve is, the the same for a long time.
better the solar energy relatively develops.
● Characteristic 3:China's GDP relies heavily on energy supply, and 4.4.2. Characteristic 2
renewable energy is less important in energy supply in China. Based on the methods of land solar energy calculation in this
paper, most countries with vast territories tend to occupy more
4.3.3. China's position in the clusters solar energy resources. The effective utilization of PV includes two
The cluster analysis tries to take more elements into account: types, off-grid power system and grid-connected power system.
indicators from Energy Source, Energy Consumption and Energy The areas where PV is abundant are always sparsely populated
Generation, and the reletivization of the indicators. The results areas, not the energy consumption centers. Therefore, long-
show that China was the most unique country in 2000. Although distance power transmission path construction will be necessary
PV industry developed fast since 2008, China was still hard to be if grid-connected power system is to be constructed in these
classified with other countries. European has the most developed countries, which is an extra expense. In addition, the larger the
 X. Ruhang / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 56 (2016) 1032–1043
territory area is, likely the more abundant wind power and
hydropower resources there will be. Based on this, the fact that PV
has always been a non-dominated is not beyond understanding.
As for countries with small territory area, lacking of alternative
renewable energy is likely to raise the importance of PV power
generation. The result is confirmed by the fact that PV capacity
accounts for a large proportions in the whole renewable energy
capacities in these countries as can be seen in Figs. 2, 3 and 6.
The development of distributed PV power generation in China
remained stagnant for years. In most developed country, such as
Denmark, Germany and Japan, the distributed form accounts for
more than 80% of the whole PV power generation. The world's
average proportion of distributed form is as high as 68.9%. How-
ever this number of China is quite low. The psychological inertia of
China's energy development appears to be centralized energy
development manipulated by state-owned enterprises. Installed
capacity of the top five power generation groups (all are state-
owned enterprises) in China reached 473.53 GW in 2010,
accounting for 49% of the country's total installed capacity
[22–24].
The problem of effective long-distance transmission of renew-
able energy generated electricity from northwest and northeast of
China to the east consumption center has not been solved. In 2011,
5.98 billion kW h wind power has been abandoned due to power
dispatching problems [25]. As mentioned above, in most European
countries distributed power generation technology is widely
applied, because this technology solve the problem of long dis-
tance transmission, and directly provide electricity to the con-
sumers. After the power transmission problem of centralized RES
power generation becomes significant, China began to develop
distributed PV market. But China has invested enormous capital
into centralized power generation assets, which may become
obstacles for power source transformation. What's more, the grid
connection problem and low economic efficiency problem of dis-
tributed RES power generation are yet to be solved [26]. In all,
characteristic 2 leads to the historical obstacles for development of
PV power generation in China.
4.4.3. Characteristic 3
Energy development over the past ten years around the world
showed a development trend that more GDP-energy reliance is,
the less attention is focused on renewable energy development. It
turns out China has done great contribution to this Characteristic.
For quite a long time, China's energy mostly relies on fossil
fuels such as coal and oil. Compared to other countries, the pro-
portion of coal in China energy consumption has been astonish-
ingly high as 70–80% over the past ten years.
China's primary energy consumption is 3.62 billion tons of
standard coal a year, which is equivalent to 20% of worldwide
energy consumption. Energy consumption per unit of GDP in China
is 2.5 times as large as the world average level, 3.3 as large as of the
United States', 7 times as large as Japan's, and even overstep some
developing countries', such as Brazil and Mexico. Each ton of energy
consumption can only provide 14,000 RMB GDP in China, which is
far lower than 25,000 RMB-the world average level, 31,000 RMB in
the USA, and 50,000 RMB in Japan [27].
Moreover, waste and pollution problems caused by the burning of
fossil fuels bring about environmental consequences. In 2012, carbon
emissions of China are 8 billion tons, which covers 28% of the global
emissions. Coal burning will most probably bring about air pollution.
Poisonous gases such as sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, and nitric
oxide are released by the burning. Recently, air pollutions attacked
most major cities in China, which releases a severe warning sign about
the environmental problem of China [28].
Character 3 has another manifestation that China provides
great proportion of PV production, but itself has little PV installed
1041
capacity. Energy consumed in the production of PV equipment is
still mainly brought by burning of fossil fuels. For a long time,
capital in China keeps chasing high GDP output, even in the green
industry. Even in domestic development of renewable energy, PV
has never become a dominated player. What's more, if PV stations
are to be invested, the ones which have higher priority will be the
centralized PV stations not distributed PV stations [29].
The emergence of Characteristic 3 is the result of varies ele-
ments, such as the economic structure and the inherent nature of
China's economic development route. To develop renewable
energy in China, not only installed RES capacity is to be increased,
but also the energy efficiency is to be raised no matter in hydro
power, wind power or PV.
5. Conclusion and suggestion
China has been considered as a PV market with the highest
potential after 2010 [30]. Some comments revealed the problems
of over-large capacity of China's PV equipment manufacturing
industry and the reduction of foreign markets, and suggest sti-
mulating domestic PV market [31]. Based on the analysis in this
paper, China has presented the following characteristics over the
past ten years: firstly, GDP growth is not dependent on renewable
energy, and renewable energy is not dependent on PV. If we do not
take the historic character of China's energy industry into con-
sideration, and just focus on absorbing the excess PV production
capacity, then solar energy would never be sufficiently developed
as an alternative energy for fossil fuels.
This paper has noted that the development of China's wind
power is far ahead PV. China has finished building large amounts
of centralized wind farm in northern part of China. High-tech
electricity transmission technology is needed to transmit power to
the southeast electric consumption center of China. Large amount
of Wind power installed capacities in Xinjiang and Gansu province
have been limited by the transmission ability.
In Gansu, Hexi's conventional 750 kV-size power grid is now
capable of transferring electricity from west to the east at a size of
about 1.8 million kW, which will still be only 3.18 million kW even
after adopting several world widely most advanced technologies
like 750 kV series compensation and 750 kV controllable high
resistance measurements (they are not available in China at the
present). However, a transmission ability of 3.18 million kW can
merely send out 94% of the wind power generated by the end of
2010 [32]. Furthermore, the fluctuation of wind, solar and other
RES will affect the stability of the grid. In the interest of effective
utilization of RES in these regions, it is advisable to develop energy
storage technologies and grid technologies vigorously.
Although judging from Fig. 2, western China possesses abun-
dant solar resources. From the analysis in Section 4.4, the follow-
ing disadvantages would be brought about if the government
continues misusing subsidy for construction of concentrated PV
power plants.
(1) Huge amount of installed renewable capacity is likely to cause
problems of local grid absorption. On the other hand, long
distance power delivery faces technical obstacles. These fac-
tors will cause under-utilization of installed renewable capa-
cities. As a matter of fact, as mentioned above, the wind
generators in China have been restricted for power generation
for 5.98 billion kW h in 2011, for grid dispatching reasons.
(2) One of the China's energy industry specialties is that, GDP is
greatly dependent on fossil fuels. This is an obvious character
revealed by 10-year data analysis. In these 10 years, this trend
is decreasing, but the decreasing ratio is low. This is an
economic structural problem, that many national economy
1042 X. Ruhang / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 56 (2016) 1032–1043
departments rely heavily on traditional energy. Therefore, it is
not wise to look to the fossil energy substitution brought by
enormous investment in concentrated PV power plants.
(3) Analysis in this paper shows that PV is not a dominated way in
RES power generation. For the existing RES power generation,
China has invested great capital, but these RES capacities are
far from full load operation, which produced limited economic
benefit. Under this condition, the RES capacity will be further
restricted if more huge amount of concentrated PV capacities
are installed, for that if these capacities cannot be effectively
absorbed by the grid, all the capacities will be forced to work
in low efficiency. On the other hand, the dependence on fossil
fuel will hardly change, but huge amount of capital will
already be invested.
Therefore, the investment of PV should be aimed at the energy
saving and emission reduction targets, and employ a more effec-
tive way. Off-grid and distributed PV power generation will be
better ways of PV investment than concentrated PV. For districts
where the grid cannot reach (actually many of these districts have
abundant RES storage), off-grid PV is a very efficient energy source
for the power demand of the local residents. In fact, off-grid PV has
been widely applied in many countries. In the USA, off-grid sys-
tems represented 10% of the overall market in 2009. In Australia
and Korea, dozens of megawatts of off-grid capacity are installed
every year. At the end of 2011, China has only 178 MW off-grid PV
installs, while the total PV installs reached 2.9 GW, and off-gird PV
only count for 6.1%.
Distributed PV power generation refers to the pattern that the
capacity is installed at the demand side, and solar energy is
transferred into electricity by the PV modules. Different from
concentrated PV power generation, distributed PV is local-gener-
ated, local-combined and local-consumed, so as to solve the
obstacle of long distance power delivery. Of course, most of these
PV projects still need to be connected to the distribution part of
the grid, so as to guarantee the stability of the power supply [33].
As mentioned in Section 4.4, the distributed PV installs of China
are still small. Chinese government has set an 8 GW target for
distributed PV installation (while still 6 GW target for con-
centrated PV installation) [34]. Considered the conclusion of this
paper, the strategy suggestions should be made as follows.
(1) The specific implementation of the policies. Although many
incentive policies have been announced by the central gov-
ernment, specific implementations of the policies are still
missing in most regions of China. The central government
should urge the local government to provide specific and
suitable policies for the distributed PV development.
(2) The feed-in-tariff of distributed PV. Some of the early con-
centrated PV projects got bidding-franchise price. Later, the
tariff of RES generated power is examined and determined by
China's national development and reform commission, and
the price varied. The central government announced a subsidy
standard of 0.42 ¥/kW h, where the specific regulations of the
policy implement are still needed. And whether it is a suitable
price is still to be considered.
(3) The grid connection problem. At present, there are two main
ways of grid connection. The first way is, boosting voltage,
delivery by transmission grid, and delivering into distribution
gird. This way is adopted by concentrated PV power genera-
tion. The second way is, direct connection with distribution
grid, which is usually adopted by distributed PV power gen-
eration because it's low rate of power. None of these grid
connection solutions is mature enough. They will all bring
impacts to the stability of the grid because of the fluctuation of
PV Power generation. Smart grid technologies are needed for
abundant distributed PV connection, which is the technology
that China does not have. More investment should be put into
the R&D section.
(4) The economic efficient distributed PV solutions. This is a factor
affected not only by technical elements, but also by some
social-science elements. For instance, distributed PV develop-
ment requires huge investment in gird technical transforma-
tion. How will the vested interests react to it? What is the
benefit distribution for the consumers? All these are key
problems for the efficient development of PV industry
in China.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge the supports by
National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71271085) and
Beijing Twelfth Five Year Plan Project of philosophy and social
sciences (No. 12JGB044).
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