China has become the world’s biggest producer of solar energy by installing projects that are already generating 77.42 gigawatts of electricity.
Reports say China has become the world’s biggest producer of solar energy by installing projects that are already generating 77.42 gigawatts of electricity per year.
A report by digitaltrends.com emphasized that China officially claimed the title after doubling its installed photovoltaic capacity last year.
“By the end of 2016, China’s capacity hit 77.42 gigawatts, and while this is great in terms of raw numbers, it’s a lot less impressive relative to the country’s massive population,” the report added.
Solar energy represents only one percent of the China’s energy output. However, speculations are rising that this may soon change as China devotes more and more of its attention towards clean energy.
The country’s National Energy Administration (NEA) has already announced that plans are underway to add more than 110 gigawatts to the overall photovoltaic capacity installed across the state within the next three years.
This, it has added in a recent announcement, could help the nation up the proportion of its renewable energy use to 20 percent by 2030 from the current 11 percent.
China’s geography certainly lends itself to large solar energy farms. Last year, Shandong, Xinjiang, and Henan provinces enjoyed the greatest increase in their solar capacity. This is while Xinjiang, Gansu, Qinghai, and Inner Mongolia ended up with the most overall capacity at the end of 2016.
Weaning itself off of fossil fuels will require quite a hefty investment; one that China appears ready to make, digitaltrends.com added in its report.
As per a Reuters report, the nation will be pouring some 2.5 trillion yuan ($364 billion) into renewable power generation by the end of the decade.
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