China’s installed photovoltaic capacity of solar power reaches around 660 GW

China adds 45.7GW of solar photovoltaic (PV) in Q1 2024, up from 33.7GW in Q1 2023.

China’s National Energy Administration has unveiled that the country’s newly added solar photovoltaic capacity in the first quarter of 2024 was 45.74GW, up from 33.66GW in the same quarter last year.

Previous data from the energy administration showed that the newly installed PV capacity in the first two months was 36.72GW. Therefore, China added about 9.02GW of solar capacity in March. 

From January to March, China installed 69.4GW of power generation capacity. Of the additions, solar and wind accounted for 65.9% and 22.3% respectively.

Also in Q1, China’s cumulative installed capacity of power generation reached 2,990GW, representing a year-on-year growth of 14.5%. The installed capacity from solar PV was around 660GW, increasing by 55% year-on-year. Moreover, the installed capacity of wind power reached about 456.6GW, showing a year-on-year increase of 21.5%.

Newly installed capacity of various energy sources from January to March 2024

Indicators	Unit	Cumulative (January-March)	Year-on-year increase
Newly installed capacity	Million kilowatts	6943	1342*
Hydro	Million kilowatts	181	-90*
Thermal	Million kilowatts	639	-167*
Nuclear	Million kilowatts	0	-119*
Wind	Million kilowatts	1550	509*
Solar PV	Million kilowatts	4574	1208*

Note: In the” Year-on-year increase” column, the indicators marked with * are absolute quantities. Data from: National Energy Administration of China

Moreover, in Q1, the cumulative average utilisation of solar power generation facilities in China was 279 hours, decreasing by 24 hours year-on-year.

China has been increasing its installed solar capacity as it enjoyed impressive growth in 2023. According to the National Energy Administration of China, new solar installations reached 216.88GW last year, representing a year-on-year increase of 148.12%.

New solar PV installations amounted to 53GW for the month of December, increasing by 144.24% year-on-year and representing nearly a quarter of the entire year’s solar capacity additions. Centralised PV power stations and distributed PV systems saw an addition of 82.7GW and 44.9GW, respectively throughout the year.