China Smashes Solar Installation Record In May (oilprice.com) 22
An anonymous reader quotes a report from OilPrice.com: China installed its highest solar power capacity for a single month in May, according to official data, which showed mind-boggling figures that the country installed more solar capacity in a month than any other nation did for the entire 2024. With 93 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity installed in May, China smashed its own record of 71 GW in December 2024, per data from the National Energy Administration cited by Bloomberg.
China's solar capacity additions in May were rushed ahead of a new government policy -- effective June 1 -- to remove pricing protection for solar power projects. Under these protections, solar projects had all but guaranteed profits when they start operations. Another new rule, effective May 1, made connecting rooftop panels to the grid more difficult. These new policies are expected to moderate the growth in solar power additions this summer, analysts say. A separate report notes that China's cumulative installed solar capacity has surpassed 1 TW, according to the National Energy Administration (NEA). "By the end of May 2025, solar capacity had reached 1.08 TW (1,080 GW), up 56.9% year on year," reports pv magazine.
"NEA data show total power generation capacity stood at 3.61 TW at the end of May, an 18.8% increase from a year earlier."
China's solar capacity additions in May were rushed ahead of a new government policy -- effective June 1 -- to remove pricing protection for solar power projects. Under these protections, solar projects had all but guaranteed profits when they start operations. Another new rule, effective May 1, made connecting rooftop panels to the grid more difficult. These new policies are expected to moderate the growth in solar power additions this summer, analysts say. A separate report notes that China's cumulative installed solar capacity has surpassed 1 TW, according to the National Energy Administration (NEA). "By the end of May 2025, solar capacity had reached 1.08 TW (1,080 GW), up 56.9% year on year," reports pv magazine.
"NEA data show total power generation capacity stood at 3.61 TW at the end of May, an 18.8% increase from a year earlier."
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Sunlight is the keyword here, they don't work at night.
However that can be managed and new power storage techniques are being developed all the time.
It's a matter of when in countries that have coal mining jobs holding cities up.
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The average solar PV capacity factor in the U.S. is 24.5%. 3.61 TW at 24.5% for one year is 7.7 PWh. Total electricity usage in China last year was 9.5 PWh.
If they figure out storage, their fossil fuel plants can all be shut down in a few years.
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"If they figure out storage, their fossil fuel plants can all be shut down in a few years."
Guess what, they are figuring it out. Storing a kWh now just adds a few cents to its cost.
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"Sunlight is the keyword here, they don't work at night"
yet that doesn't mean they're completely useless in the dark.
large installations - i'm not sure at what size they become useful for the following purpose - can provide grid services, specifically reactive power which is critical to grid stability
Re: Imagine explaining solar (Score:1)
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Nuclear power. Makes electricity free from nuclear fission. Why dont we have it everywhere.
Because it's FAR from free. I'm very pro-nuclear, but we need to be honest about the pros (MANY) and the cons (several) of nuclear energy. One of the biggest problems is waste storage - instead of stashing it in an abandoned mineshaft in the Nevada desert (we can thank ex-senator Harry Reid for that), we store it on site. This is an expensive problem. This can be remedied with legislation, but unfortunately the Legislative branch of our government has a very difficult time passing laws, except on culture wa
Re: these (several) cons are HUGE (Score:1)
1.
Advancing nuclear, will also make it available to way more countries.
By that giving this tech to those.
Teaching those.
Building infrastructure and education to handle radioactive stuff.
From there it's only a small step sell stuff others can use for nuclear bombs.
By advocating nuclear, you also advocate giving atomic bombs to the whole world.
2.
risk of meltdown exists
newer nuclear is 100 x more secure
building 100 x more nuclear power plants / 100 x more secure equals the risk as of Tschernobyl and Fukushima
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So called "green" tech like solar panels actually do produce vast quantities of incredibly toxic waste at every stage of their lifecycle that we have no viable way to deal with, unlike nuclear.
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So called "green" tech like solar panels actually do produce vast quantities of incredibly toxic waste at every stage of their lifecycle that we have no viable way to deal with, unlike nuclear.
Sounds like copium to me. Nuclear fission has lost the PR war, the economic war, and the tech war, and now you're hoping you can bring it back from the dead by slagging the competition with baseless hyperbole. Well, good luck with that; but it sure looks like that race has already been called. I still have hope for nuclear fusion, FWIW.
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I might need a $300converter though, but I could increase my panel area to 10 sqm for a total price of $1300, which will ge
This is the way. (Score:3)
Every house should have solar panels. Forget the environmental impact of oil, look at all the screwed up things oil money funds. For that reason alone we need to switch to solar. Furthermore, if your house has solar .. that gives you more freedom. You're not subject to energy price fluctuations. And heck if you lost all your money you can still survive. I guess you'd need to figure out food I suppose (in theory can grow it indoors with solar energy), but maybe you can use the solar power to get on TikTok and get money for food.
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You need local battery storage in order to have off-grid capability, right?
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"Every house should have solar panels"
long before one gets around to putting them on small residential roofs, every large roof - big box stores, warehouses, schools, etc - and parking lots should be covered with solar panels
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Every house should have solar panels.
Yes, but even if the energy they produce more than pays for themselves many homeowners lack the capital to install them or have other uses for that capital. If government created the means for people to finance them, then they could install them. There are a couple problems there. One is that there is a huge centralized energy industry with investors that make money building large generators and the infrastructure to deliver the power where it is used. So we provide government support for building those la
Re: This is the way. (Score:2)
The transition is challenging, traditionally we Belgians nag about it, as we definitely do not want to be great. But that does not stop us.
Went to the town hall last week. They did an info session about home batteries. The rules relaxed recently. Dude told us that Germany is actually ahead of us.
No guts, n
Three times more power than the US (Score:2)
Ignoring the solar fraction, note China's total generating capacity: 3.61TW
According to Wikipedia, total capacity for the US is 1.28TW. For the EU it's 1.08TW.
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You can't really ignore the solar fraction, though, or the also-large wind fraction; even in 2023, the two made up about 43% of total capacity. Those two chunks are counted as nameplate capacities rather than typical output, and typical capacity factors are 15-25% for solar and 20-40% for wind. That means the actual generation is a lot less than 3.61 TW, almost certainly less than 3 TW, and possibly less than 2.5 TW. The US is a lot less affected by those factors (see, for example, https://www.eia.gov/en [eia.gov]
3.61 TW? ! (Score:2)
Sounds like someone's planning on installing an Nvidia 5090 !