After global solar photovoltaic (PV) additions reached 421 GWdc — a staggering 70% year-on-year growth — in 2023, S&P Global Commodity Insights projects further 20% year-on-year growth in 2024.

• Mainland China exceeded 2023 expectations by installing 239GWdc, two and a half times the 2022 demand. Once again, the world's largest PV market demonstrated its ability to react to module oversupply and price declines. This year, S&P Global Commodity Insights projects mainland China to remain stable, with 228 GWdc of PV additions, bringing the market's total installed PV capacity to 0.8 TWdc.
• This level of additions brings many challenges. The speed of grid infrastructure investment and build-out currently lag the growth of renewable energy additions, and lower GDP growth forecasts indicate that power demand growth could slow down. Both factors are a threat to solar PV project output and profitability. Power market reforms also create uncertainty regarding electricity prices and developers are also challenged by land-use rights, available rooftops and finding the right business model for future deployment.
• Despite these challenges, the near and mid-term outlook for China's PV market remains robust thanks to the government's clean energy ambitions. The government seeks to both accelerate low-emission power generation and sustain mainland China as the global PV manufacturing hub. The outlook is underpinned by large schemes, such as the renewable mega bases, combined with regional support and quickly falling system prices. As manufacturing capacity growth outpaces PV demand growth in overseas market, demand in mainland China is key to upholding a supply-demand balance.

Learn more about our top 10 cleantech trends for 2024.

Josefin Berg is a research and analysis manager for the Solar and Energy Storage research team at S&P Global Commodity Insights, where she covers trends and company strategies in the downstream part of the solar PV market.

Holly Hu, principal analyst at S&P Global Commodity Insights, is responsible for tracking and analyzing solar policies and markets in Asia, particularly mainland China and Japan. She also provides in-depth coverage of the polysilicon to photovoltaic module supply chain, with a focus on Chinese manufacturers.

Posted on 26 February 2024

This article was published by S&P Global Commodity Insights and not by S&P Global Ratings, which is a separately managed division of S&P Global.