Solar photovoltaic & its application in China

The research on photovoltaic technology in China began in 1958. Form 1958 to early 1980's,many types of solar cell had been researched and developed. But in this period solar cell was only used as small power supplier and the annual productive capacity of solar cell was less than 200 kW till 1983.

 From 1980's the pro9ductive scale the level of science research, the technological application and the market development of solar cell in China have been increased very rapidly. From 1983 to 1987, seven productive lines were introduced from America, Canada, etc. and the annual productive capacity was increased to 4.5 MW. There are several dozens of institutes, universities and factories working on R&D of solar cell and its manufacture. Now PV systems are used widely in various areas: agriculture, animal husbandry, transportation, telecommunication, meteorological and earthquake station, medical, military and national defense. Size of PV application system is expanded from several watts to several kilowatts. Several PV power stations have been built up in Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Tibet, etc. In 9 counties without electricity in Tibet, three PV power stations have been completed, with scale of 10kw, 20kW and 25kW respectively. Other six PV power stations are in national plan.

 China will continue to R&D high-efficiency, low-cost solar cell, more than 10,000 villages and thousands of islands without electricity supply in China. PV technology will play a very important role in solving the problem in these areas.