, the State Council issued the "2024-2025 Energy Conservation and Carbon Reduction Action Plan", proposing to "increase the development of non-fossil energy". It is planned that by the end of 2025, the national non-fossil energy power generation will account for about 39%. Data show that in 2022, the national non-fossil energy power generation 3144.3 billion kWh, accounting for 36.2 of the total power generation. As of the end of April, the national photovoltaic power generation capacity of about 0.67 billion kilowatts (kW), an increase of 52.4. From 2013 to 2023, China's installed photovoltaic power generation capacity increased by 31.4 times.
at present, the spatial distribution of China's photovoltaic industry is not balanced. The northwest region is rich in light resources, and most of the large photovoltaic bases are concentrated here. However, the local power consumption capacity is limited, and excess power can only be provided to the eastern provinces through the "West-East Power Transmission. However, due to the intermittent and random characteristics of photovoltaic power generation, some power grids do not yet have the ability to transport tens of millions of kilowatts of photovoltaic power, and the additional power generation costs and power losses caused by long-distance transmission make the attraction of "Western Power" to the eastern provinces increasingly declining, and offshore photovoltaic has entered the vision of coastal provinces.
offshore photovoltaic is very broad. Compared with the tense onshore photovoltaic land resources in the eastern region, the coastline of China's mainland extends for 18000 kilometers. According to the prediction of China Photovoltaic Industry Association (CPIA), the ocean area that can theoretically develop offshore photovoltaic projects is about 710000 square kilometers, and the installed offshore photovoltaic capacity exceeds 70 GW (GW,1GW equals 1 million kW), which is equivalent to about 70 large-scale thermal power stations or 700 large-scale onshore wind farms. At the same time, the location of the power station in the coastal area can effectively shorten the transmission distance and reduce the transmission loss.
technology is still the biggest bottleneck in the development of offshore photovoltaic, and there are still various technical problems to be solved in order to achieve scale and industrialization. As early as 2016, the company had a trial operation of offshore photovoltaic projects. In the past eight years, in addition to building a small number of floating power stations on lakes and experimental offshore photovoltaic power stations, countries are still in the early or experimental stage. The reason is that the complex sea environment, construction difficulty and technical requirements make power generation The cost remains high and it is difficult to put into production. Mature offshore photovoltaic projects need to make preliminary research and judgment on the environment, pollution, wind and waves, and their planning should be approved by marine, electricity, environmental protection and other departments. In terms of technology, in the face of strong winds and waves, high humidity, and high salt environment, whether it is a pile-based fixed installation or a floating installation, the stability of the fixing parts, the durability of the power generation components, and the corrosion resistance are extremely high. High, all aspects still need continuous technology accumulation. Therefore, at present, most of the offshore photovoltaic projects in various provinces are still in the state of planning or construction, and the actual installed capacity is limited.
, in the long run, China still has opportunities in the development of offshore photovoltaic industry. On the one hand, my country is currently the world's largest and most competitive photovoltaic industry chain country. At the same time, large-scale park-type photovoltaic equipment production bases in various regions are still continuing to land, and technology is constantly being upgraded. On the other hand, the coastal provinces have begun to lay out offshore photovoltaic as early as several years ago. Compared with enterprises that tend to short-term returns, the government and state-owned enterprises pay more attention to long-term benefits, which coincides with the characteristics of heavy assets and long cycle of offshore photovoltaic. In 2021, Shandong, Jiangsu and other provinces have begun to develop the offshore photovoltaic industry. Among them, Shandong has planned two 10-million-kilowatt offshore photovoltaic bases "around the Bohai Sea" and "along the Yellow Sea", with an installed capacity of 65 million kilowatts by 2025, including about 12 million kilowatts of offshore photovoltaic. The 400 MW (MW,1MW equals 1000kW) offshore photovoltaic project deployed by CGNPC in Laizhou Bay started at the end of last year. The country's first large-scale offshore pile-based fixed offshore photovoltaic project consists of 121 photovoltaic sub-arrays, the average annual power generation is expected to be 0.69 billion kWh.
think at the beginning, in the early stage of the development of onshore photovoltaic and wind power, they also experienced many difficulties and cold eyes; today, new energy has become one of the most eye-catching labels in China's products. The future of offshore PV depends on where the technology can reduce the cost of power generation. With the progress of technology, the improvement of income, and the continuous expansion of the industrial scale, the photovoltaic power generation industry "from land to sea" is not a fantasy, and it will also make an important contribution to China's high-level goal of energy conservation and carbon reduction and the steady realization of "carbon neutrality. (The author is the dean of China Energy Policy Research Institute, School of Management, Xiamen University)
