China’s energy regulator has said that as part of efforts to ease a subsidy payment backlog China will give priority to the construction of wind and solar projects that can operate without subsidies this year, and will cap new subsidised capacity.
After a rapid fall in manufacturing costs, China has been gradually cutting the amount of subsidies to renewable energy providers.
Reuters Newsagency reports it said last year that it would take action to ensure wind and solar generators can achieve “grid price parity” with traditional energy sources such as coal.
China has already promised to launch a series of solar and wind projects that can provide electricity at the same price as coal-fired power, after a surge in capacity left the finance ministry with a subsidy payment backlog of at least US$17.9 billion.
After studying local conditions, regional energy bureaus should give priority to the construction of wind and solar plants with grid price parity, and rationally control the scale of new projects that still require subsidy, China’s National Energy Administration said in new draft rules.
“Projects that require government subsidy will have to compete with each other on prices.
“Government payment will prioritise the projects that are expected to become subsidy-free in the near term,” the draft plan said.
It called on local authorities to be more rational when approving new capacity, especially for offshore wind power development.
Developers of wind projects will be ordered to ensure their proposed on-grid prices do not exceed the benchmark prices set by government, and also ensure the amount of power wasted because of grid connection failures is kept below five per cent.
The NEA also plans to improve the management of solar power subsidy by imposing differential policies for large solar stations, distributed solar projects, solar plants designed to help alleviate poverty and government-led pilot schemes.
The energy bureau is also encouraging solar and wind projects that have already received the green light from authorities on construction, to switch to subsidy-free.
Total subsidies for solar projects in 2019 have been set at US$448 milliom.
Of that, US$112 million will be allocated to “distributed” rooftop power projects with a combined capacity of 3.5 gigawatts (GW), with the rest going to solar stations, the NEA said.
China added 20.59GW of wind capacity in 2018, bringing the country’s total to 184GW, according to NEA data.
It remains shy of its 2020 target of 210GW.
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