Demand for PV aluminium extrusion to rise before lower solar subsidies in Jul

SHANGHAI, May 5 (SMM) – Domestic demand for photovoltaic (PV) aluminium extrusion is expected to receive a boost in the following two months from speed-up installations of new solar power plants before the lower feed-in tariff (FiT) subsidies take effect on July 1.

China will cut the FiT for newly-operated PV power plants by 0.1-0.15 yuan/kWh, from that set in May of 2018, according to a statement by the National Development and Reform Commission on April 28. 

The adjustment will bring the subsidies to 0.4 yuan/kWh, tax included for Category I region of northern China, to 0.45 yuan/kWh for Category II region of the western and central China, and to 0.55 yuan/kWh for the rest of the country, or Category III zone.

The FiT for “village-level” poverty alleviation solar PV power projects will remain unchanged at 0.65 yuan/kWh for Region I,  0.75 yuan/kWh for Region II and 0.85 yuan/kWh for Region III.

Subsidies for commercial and industrial distributed PV projects will be lowered to 0.1 yuan/kWh, and that for distributed PV systems at residential buildings to 0.18 yuan/kWh, compared with both 0.32 yuan/kWh before the cuts. 

While China stopped approving new solar installations for 2018 in the previous release, such restrictions were not mentioned in the latest policies. 

China’s National Energy Administration (NEA) confirmed that 5.2 GW of new solar capacity was installed in the first quarter of 2019, made up of 2.4 GW of ground-mounted solar and 2.8 GW of distributed generation projects. This was down 46% from the same quarter a year earlier.

NEA said that China targets a subsidy-free solar market from 2021.