Status, trend, economic and environmental impacts of household solar photovoltaic development in China: Modelling from subnational perspective

Distributed solar PV contributes one third to total solar power generation in China, but household solar PV (HSPV) currently accounts for only 22% in the distributed solar market. Although researchers have investigated the huge power generation potential of the rooftop system by various estimation techniques and case studies, few has looked deeper into the barriers and pathways to realize that potential. This study builds an analytical framework for HSPV development, which includes a trend analysis module based on the downscaling platform and an impact simulation module based on techno-economic evaluation. Results show that the top four provinces contribute 74% to current installed capacity of HSPV, which represents only 2% of the technical potential. However, with the rapid cost reduction and market expansion, regional development of HSPV would become more balanced. Besides, although HSPV project is economically feasible for 86% of the prefectural cities, the profitability remains to be further enhanced given its current low adoption rate. When environmental and health gains from reduced exposure to air pollution are considered, net benefit is equivalent to 62.8% of the initial investment, and larger net benefit is expected for households from cities in the southern and eastern coastal regions. Finally, it is concluded that constant cost decline brought by technology innovation is still the main driver for the majority of less developed cities in the middle and northern part of China, and more efforts should be devoted to business mode innovation to motivate HSPV investment in more developed cities in the east.