The five major central enterprises including the State Energy Group, CNNC, and Huaneng have secured over 23GW of EPC contracts for photovoltaic power stations. According to data from the National Energy Administration, China's newly installed photovoltaic capacity surged to 36.72GW in the first two months of 2024, an 80.3% year-on-year increase. With the further release of photovoltaic installation capacity, photovoltaic EPC bidding projects across the country have become increasingly active. According to public information compiled by the North Star, in the first quarter of 2024, major players in power station development such as CNNC, State Energy Group, China Huadian Group, China Huaneng Group, China Datang Group, State Power Investment, and China Energy Construction have initiated bidding projects totaling over 56GW for photovoltaic power stations.
The total capacity of ground-mounted power stations is approximately 33GW, distributed photovoltaic projects are around 16.58GW, county-level projects are 5.188GW, and photovoltaic bases are 1.452GW. In terms of project distribution, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Anhui, Guangxi, Yunnan, Hunan, Shandong, and Zhejiang provinces are the main concentrated areas, accounting for about 52.7%. In terms of project types, ground-mounted power stations are the mainstream development model, accounting for 37%; distributed photovoltaic stations are gaining momentum, accounting for 29%; county-level distributed photovoltaic accounts for 7%, and photovoltaic bases account for 6%. In addition, under the promotion of "photovoltaics +", the proportion of agricultural-photovoltaic complementary and fishery-photovoltaic complementary projects has also increased. In terms of trends in bid prices, since the beginning of the year, with upstream raw material prices entering a downturn, photovoltaic EPC prices have also declined.
The compiled data from the North Star shows that nearly 36.5GW of projects have already been awarded. Among the winners, apart from the two major central enterprises China Energy Construction and Inner Mongolia Energy Group securing 5.132GW and 4.024GW of bids respectively, private enterprises such as Suntech, JA Solar, Schneider Electric, and Yingli have also won projects. As for the CNNC Group, in the first quarter, out of the 7173.84GW of bidding projects, approximately 5.124GW have been determined as winning bids. The project types include ground-mounted power stations, distributed photovoltaic projects, county-level projects, and photovoltaic bases. Notably, recent years have seen large-scale component and inverter collective bidding by central SOEs, with small-scale EPC projects dominating in the EPC station project bidding. For projects by the State Energy Group, in the first quarter, a total of 8.39GW of bidding projects were announced, with approximately 3.3GW of winning bids. The projects include ground-mounted power stations, distributed photovoltaic projects, and photovoltaic bases, with different average bid prices.
Huaneng and Huadian are also actively involved in the EPC bidding projects for photovoltaic power stations, with substantial capacity being awarded. is focuDatang sing mainly on ground-mounted and distributed photovoltaic projects. Overall, the photovoltaic market in China is experiencing significant growth with key players securing large-scale projects through competitive bidding processes.
