Page 360 - 2021 White Paper
P. 360
1 White Paper on the Business Environment in China
offshore wind farms. However, the rate of growth is could, in the near future, could replace fossil fuels in
expected to accelerate in the next 10 years because many places. Current global production capacity is
of a growing appetite for clean energy in countries nowhere near enough to meet the coming demand.
in the Asia-Pacific region. But by the end of the The trick is to create a product that could compete
decade China is expected to host more than a fifth in the longer term. There are two ways to make the
of the world’s offshore wind turbines, equating to blocks that solar wafers are sliced from: by cooling
52GW (Ambrose). molten silicon into one homogeneous structure or
encouraging it to crystallize from different points.
With the pandemic and the climate crisis still The first approach, known as mono-crystalline,
raging, China has been steadily building up its provides greater conductivity and efficiency. But
wind farms over land and sea. Despite Covid-19 it’s more expensive than multi-crystalline products,
grinding much of the world to a halt, China’s drive which most manufacturers favored in their efforts
to conquer the global renewable energy market to compete with cheap fossil fuel generation.
continues apace: it’s constructing more offshore Cost-cutting can’t fully neutralize the other major
wind capacity than the rest of the world combined. threat to China’s solar industry: politics. The US and
Since reaching the one-gigawatt milestone in 2017 European Union have periodically targeted Chinese
(enough energy to power 100 million LED home manufacturers with anti-dumping tariffs since the
light bulbs), progress has been rampant. China early 2010s, claiming that subsidies allow them to
is now the world’s leader in new offshore wind sell below cost. The US-China trade war kicked off
installations. And construction hasn’t always been in 2018 with duties on panels, and India, which is
focused on the South China Sea. Offshore is easy trying to reduce the economic influence of its giant
to transmit, and the wind along the east coast and neighbor, recently extended tariffs that had been
the industrial cities is well populated. It’s easy for set to expire on Chinese solar products. China’s
energy consumption. There also tends to be less of a solar industry is nonetheless growing rapidly. At
resistance to offshore wind farms. On-or-off-shore, the end of 2019, Chinese panel factories had an
China now boasts more than 135,000 turbines, annual capacity of 193 gigawatts, 60% more than
generating more than 235 gigawatts of electricity was installed worldwide in that year. Planned
per year. It’s also the world’s biggest exporter of expansions could increase a total by more than
solar panels. China’s offshore wind sector is set to half. There’s also been significant progress on
overtake the UK market as the world’s largest by the the technology’s biggest problem: that it can only
end of 2021 (Vince). generate electricity when the sun is out. When solar
was primarily a supplement to traditional power
Solar Power plants, that wasn’t a major concern, because power
demand tends to peak in daytime. But it becomes
Chinese companies that dominate solar— a serious constraint as more panels are installed,
collectively they control at least 60% of global creating a daytime surplus that’s not useful at night.
capacity for every step in the supply chain—are Engineers are refining a huge range of storage
playing a risky game. The short history of the solar technologies, from improved batteries to “pumped
industry is a tale of repeated boom and bust, with storage” systems, which use solar electricity to
abrupt technological and policy developments send water uphill during daylight hours, releasing
rendering multibillion-dollar investments obsolete. it through turbines when needed. None has yet
Industry leaders one day have, again and again, emerged as a game-changing solution (Murtaugh
become bankruptcy filers the next. The bet in China and Shen).
is that this time is different. Plunging costs have left
solar the cheapest form of energy in parts of the In the last decade, solar power capacity has
world. Subsidies are disappearing as it becomes grown tremendously to become the fastest-growing
more competitive with other forms of electric source of renewable energy in the world. However,
generation, making demand less dependent on in 2019, around 109 GW of new solar PV capacity
political decisions. And advances in energy storage was added worldwide, about the same as in 2018.
are opening a tantalizing possibility: that solar The rapid installations were primarily due to policy
support and a sharp decline in technology costs and
360
offshore wind farms. However, the rate of growth is could, in the near future, could replace fossil fuels in
expected to accelerate in the next 10 years because many places. Current global production capacity is
of a growing appetite for clean energy in countries nowhere near enough to meet the coming demand.
in the Asia-Pacific region. But by the end of the The trick is to create a product that could compete
decade China is expected to host more than a fifth in the longer term. There are two ways to make the
of the world’s offshore wind turbines, equating to blocks that solar wafers are sliced from: by cooling
52GW (Ambrose). molten silicon into one homogeneous structure or
encouraging it to crystallize from different points.
With the pandemic and the climate crisis still The first approach, known as mono-crystalline,
raging, China has been steadily building up its provides greater conductivity and efficiency. But
wind farms over land and sea. Despite Covid-19 it’s more expensive than multi-crystalline products,
grinding much of the world to a halt, China’s drive which most manufacturers favored in their efforts
to conquer the global renewable energy market to compete with cheap fossil fuel generation.
continues apace: it’s constructing more offshore Cost-cutting can’t fully neutralize the other major
wind capacity than the rest of the world combined. threat to China’s solar industry: politics. The US and
Since reaching the one-gigawatt milestone in 2017 European Union have periodically targeted Chinese
(enough energy to power 100 million LED home manufacturers with anti-dumping tariffs since the
light bulbs), progress has been rampant. China early 2010s, claiming that subsidies allow them to
is now the world’s leader in new offshore wind sell below cost. The US-China trade war kicked off
installations. And construction hasn’t always been in 2018 with duties on panels, and India, which is
focused on the South China Sea. Offshore is easy trying to reduce the economic influence of its giant
to transmit, and the wind along the east coast and neighbor, recently extended tariffs that had been
the industrial cities is well populated. It’s easy for set to expire on Chinese solar products. China’s
energy consumption. There also tends to be less of a solar industry is nonetheless growing rapidly. At
resistance to offshore wind farms. On-or-off-shore, the end of 2019, Chinese panel factories had an
China now boasts more than 135,000 turbines, annual capacity of 193 gigawatts, 60% more than
generating more than 235 gigawatts of electricity was installed worldwide in that year. Planned
per year. It’s also the world’s biggest exporter of expansions could increase a total by more than
solar panels. China’s offshore wind sector is set to half. There’s also been significant progress on
overtake the UK market as the world’s largest by the the technology’s biggest problem: that it can only
end of 2021 (Vince). generate electricity when the sun is out. When solar
was primarily a supplement to traditional power
Solar Power plants, that wasn’t a major concern, because power
demand tends to peak in daytime. But it becomes
Chinese companies that dominate solar— a serious constraint as more panels are installed,
collectively they control at least 60% of global creating a daytime surplus that’s not useful at night.
capacity for every step in the supply chain—are Engineers are refining a huge range of storage
playing a risky game. The short history of the solar technologies, from improved batteries to “pumped
industry is a tale of repeated boom and bust, with storage” systems, which use solar electricity to
abrupt technological and policy developments send water uphill during daylight hours, releasing
rendering multibillion-dollar investments obsolete. it through turbines when needed. None has yet
Industry leaders one day have, again and again, emerged as a game-changing solution (Murtaugh
become bankruptcy filers the next. The bet in China and Shen).
is that this time is different. Plunging costs have left
solar the cheapest form of energy in parts of the In the last decade, solar power capacity has
world. Subsidies are disappearing as it becomes grown tremendously to become the fastest-growing
more competitive with other forms of electric source of renewable energy in the world. However,
generation, making demand less dependent on in 2019, around 109 GW of new solar PV capacity
political decisions. And advances in energy storage was added worldwide, about the same as in 2018.
are opening a tantalizing possibility: that solar The rapid installations were primarily due to policy
support and a sharp decline in technology costs and
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