Breaking News! National Energy Administration Reports 24 Distributed PV Issues in 11 Provinces

April 22, the National Energy Administration issued the "Special Supervision Typical Cases on the Promotion of Distributed PV Filing and Grid Connection in 2024", reporting the main issues found during the special supervision work on the promotion of distributed PV filing and grid connection organized in 11 provinces including Hebei province.

I. Issues in Distributed PV Filing
1. The Administrative Approval Service Bureau of a certain development zone in Dongying City, Shandong Province, required a project owner to communicate with a new energy company before filing.
2. A county in Xianyang City, Shaanxi Province, stipulated in its "Notice on Promoting High-Quality Development of Distributed Photovoltaic Power Generation Projects" that natural person household PV filings must provide additional documents such as a house load-bearing capacity assessment report, opinions from the town government, and that "PV inverters should be within the scope of the Qualified Supply Model List for Distributed PV Inverters in Shaanxi Province," limiting the investment entity's choice of PV inverter products. In October 2024, the county abolished the "Notice on Promoting High-Quality Development of Distributed Photovoltaic Power Generation Projects."
3. A non-natural person household distributed PV project, when applying for filing with the Development and Reform Bureau of a city in Xiangyang, Hubei Province, provided documents such as a commitment letter not affecting airport flight safety, no loan declaration, authenticity commitment letter, and a commitment letter for rooftop distributed PV project filing.
4. A county in Liaoyang City, Liaoning Province, required non-natural person household project units to register companies locally, sign cooperative development agreements with state-owned enterprises set up by the county government, and proposed requirements such as tax and investment "thresholds"; a town in Chaoyang City, Liaoning Province, signed a tripartite agreement with a branch and a limited company, requiring a commitment to an agricultural and forestry waste resource recycling comprehensive utilization project as a condition for distributed PV filing.
5. A county in Chenzhou City, Hunan Province, signed a "New Energy Project Development Framework Agreement" with a company in November 2023, entrusting the company with the development and construction of 2.58 million m² of urban residential, rural self-built, and private enterprise rooftops, with an installed capacity of 850,000 kW. Other companies had to obtain permission from this company and pay a certain fee to file distributed PV. After the special supervision discovered this issue, the county took it seriously and actively rectified.
6. From July 2023 to September 2024, a county in Xiangyang City, Hubei Province, suspended the filing of all distributed photovoltaic power generation projects in the county due to a previous safety accident.
7. A power supply company in Yongzhou City, Hunan Province, did not file with the local energy authority from 2022 to 2023, and only filed 66 household natural person PV projects collectively in September 2024. As of the end of October 2024, another power supply company in Changsha still had 345,000 kW of distributed PV projects in operation without filing, involving 13,869 households. By December 6, 2024, the power supply company had completed the filing procedures for all 13,869 household natural person PV stations as planned.
8. In June 2024, the Development and Reform Bureau of a county in Meizhou City, Guangdong Province, issued a notice, stating that due to insufficient grid carrying capacity, to ensure the safe and stable operation of the grid, the filing of distributed power source projects in red-rated areas would be temporarily suspended.
9. After receiving the detailed list of "Household Rooftop Distributed PV Projects from June 15 to June 21, 2024" submitted by the power supply branch of a county in Chengde City, Hebei Province, the Development and Reform Bureau of the county issued a receipt confirming receipt but did not issue a standard filing document, without a document number.
10. A distributed PV power generation project in Zhejiang Province was halted due to a rent dispute between the original rooftop owner and the development company, but the filing cancellation was not processed. In March 2024, the development company reached an agreement with the new rooftop owner to restart the PV construction plan, but the new project filing was affected due to duplicate filing issues.
11. A distributed PV power generation project in a county in Xinyang City, Henan Province, was actually filed on December 1, 2023, but the filing authority issued a filing certificate dated October 18, 2023, to meet the grid connection conditions.
12. A rooftop distributed PV power generation project in a region of Panzhou City, Guizhou Province, with a total installed capacity of 20.2 MW, applicable to 10 towns and industrial parks, currently has 87 sub-projects connected to the grid with a total capacity of 8 MW, but the filing documents do not include the names, installed capacities, and construction locations of each project; a county in Anshun City clearly stated that household PV is arranged uniformly by the local government and does not go through the power supply company's filing when the power supply company centrally files with the energy authority.

II. Issues in Distributed PV Grid Connection
1. A county in Huainan City, Anhui Province, issued the "Interim Measures for the Management of Rooftop Distributed PV Power Generation Projects," requiring enterprises and residents (villagers) to submit "Opinions of the Local Town Government Agreeing to the Application for Installation of Distributed PV Power Generation Projects" when applying for installation. The Huainan Development and Reform Commission urged the county's Development and Reform Commission to immediately rectify, and the county's Development and Reform Commission held a special meeting, deciding to abolish the "Interim Measures for the Management of Rooftop Distributed PV Power Generation Projects."
2. A distributed PV power generation project in Weinan City, Shaanxi Province, lacked complete grid connection documents such as power purchase and sale contracts and lease agreements; some projects in Hubei Province had no certificates for PV modules and inverters, and some projects' PV module product certification certificates had expired at the time of grid connection application.
3. A distributed PV power generation project in a county in Zhoukou City, Henan Province, showed the project unit as a certain enterprise in the filing document, but the power supply company actually registered it under the name of a natural person, using the name of the roof property farmer.
4. Affected by local regulations on the development of distributed PV, since 2023, a power supply company in Weinan City, Shaanxi Province, has handled 31,441 distributed PV power generation projects, with over 20 working days for issuing grid connection opinions for 1,236 households.
5. A distributed PV power generation project in a power supply company in Zhejiang Province was accepted for grid connection on August 22, 2022, and responded on November 22, 2022, taking 62 working days, which did not meet the relevant requirements. The project was finally connected to the grid and accepted on April 24, 2023.
6. A distributed PV power generation project in Qinhuangdao City, Hebei Province, applied for inspection on January 29, 2023, with the actual inspection date being January 17, 2023, and the paper archive showing the inspection date as January 30, 2023, and the project passed the inspection in one go; a distributed PV power generation project in Handan City, Hebei Province, had an actual grid connection voltage level of 380 volts, but the power supply company incorrectly filled it as 10 kilovolts.
7. During the grid connection acceptance of some projects by a power supply company in Hefei City, Anhui Province, there were issues such as the project unit's debugging personnel and acceptance personnel not signing, the overall engineering debugging evaluation conclusion and the overall acceptance evaluation conclusion not being filled out, and missing equipment electrical test records.
8. When conducting carrying capacity calculations, some municipal power supply companies in Liaoning Province assessed the results as "either red or green," rather than the "red, yellow, green" three-color results specified in the "Guidelines for Assessing the Carrying Capacity of Distributed Power Sources Connected to the Grid." No clear measures to improve the grid connection capacity of distributed PV were formulated. Starting from Q3 2024, districts and counties in Liaoning have opened capacities according to the "red, yellow, green" three-color zoning, adding a yellow warning area.
9. In the "2024 Q3 Public Information Table of Accessible Capacity for Distributed PV of Public Distribution Transformers" published on the official website of a power supply company in Chizhou City, Anhui Province, some green-rated transformer districts had an accessible capacity of 0 kVA.

III. Issues in Distributed PV Transactions and Settlements
1. For a distributed PV power generation project in Huangshi City, Hubei Province, the power purchase and sale contract, grid connection acceptance opinion, and the grid-connected capacity in the power supply company's marketing system were inconsistent, at 1,260 kW, 1,600 kW, and 1,600 kW, respectively; the signing date of the power purchase and sale contract (October 9, 2023) for a distributed PV power generation project was earlier than the business acceptance date (November 14, 2023).
2. For a distributed PV power generation project in a county in Xinyang City, Henan Province, the power purchase and sale contract did not specify the seller's collection account, the electricity calculation buyer, the meter reading method, and the meter reading example day; the main technical parameters and the main wiring and property boundary point diagram in the attachment had no content. For a household distributed PV power generation project in a county in Hebi City, the original power purchase and sale contract provided by the county power bureau was inconsistent with the copy provided by the power supply company. The grid connection date for a household distributed PV power generation project was February 5, 2023, and the power purchase and sale contract was signed on July 25, 2023, with electricity settlement occurring before the contract was signed.
3. In the service area of a power supply company in Yongzhou City, Hunan Province, 25% of distributed PV grid-connected electricity fees were settled in the following month, 33% were settled quarterly, 33% were settled annually, and 9% were settled irregularly; a power supply company in Hengyang City did not categorize and summarize the electricity fee settlements for household non-natural persons and commercial and industrial distributed PV. As of the end of September 2024, the power supply company had accumulated 19.24 million yuan in unpaid distributed PV electricity fees. By the end of January 2025, 14.5847 million yuan had been settled, with 4.6553 million yuan remaining unsettled: 581,500 yuan due to internal customer disputes and voluntary suspension of settlement, and 4.0738 million yuan due to customers not issuing invoices.