China’s Fight Against Pollution to Generate Billions in Solar Income
China’s efforts to reduce some of the world’s worst air pollution are having a bonus positive effect, as they are improving the country’s potential to generate solar power by allowing more sunlight to reach the surface of the planet in that part of the world.
A team of researchers had calculated that China’s photovoltaic potential fell by about 15% between 1960 and 2015 because of growing pollution. As a result, by 2016, China was missing out on generating as much as 14 terawatt-hours of electricity from solar installations annually. That is enough to power 1.3 million households and it also cost local utilities almost $2 billion in lost power output, Oil Price reported.
Now that the government is actively working to reduce it, China could reverse the decline, boosting its solar power generation potential by 12-1%. This means that the country could boost its solar power output by 74 TWh by 2030. To utilities, this would mean an additional $6.7 billion in profits over the period.
China is the world’s leader in renewable capacity, especially in solar. Its installed solar capacity at the end of last year stood at 170 gigawatts, representing 9% of its total power generation capacity.
Yet, even China’s ambitious solar plans hit a snag when it became clear Beijing is paying too much in subsidies, as it set no limits to the amount of new solar capacity installed or its cost-competitiveness with alternative energy systems.
As a result, last year, China shocked the global solar industry by announcing it would not issue approvals for any new solar power installations by the end of 2018 and would also cut the feed-in tariff subsidy that has been a major driver of the solar business in the country.
source: Financial Tribune
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