China will go from 1% solar power in 2016 to possibly 2.5% power generation from solar in 2020

China’s installed photovoltaic (PV) capacity more than doubled last year, turning the country into the world’s biggest producer of solar energy by capacity, the National Energy Administration (NEA) said on Saturday.

Installed PV capacity rose to 77.42 gigawatts at the end of 2016, with the addition of 34.54 gigawatts over the course of the year, data from the energy agency showed.

Shandong, Xinjiang, Henan were among the provinces that saw the most capacity increase, while Xinjiang, Gansu, Qinghai and Inner Mongolia had the greatest overall capacity at the end of last year, according to the data.

China will add more than 110 gigawatts of capacity in the 2016-2020 period, according to the NEA’s solar power development plan.

Solar plants generated 66.2 billion kilowatt-hours of power last year, accounting for 1 percent of China’s total power generation, the NEA said.

The country aims to boost the mix of non-fossil fuel generated power to 20 percent by 2030 from 11 percent today. Currently most of the non-fossil fuel power in China is from hydro power.

China ended 2015 with about 120 GW of wind power, 43 GW of solar, and 320 GW of hydro power.

China completed 8 nuclear reactors in 2015 and will be completing about 9 in 2016 (9.1 GW or about 70 TWh and another 7 in 2017 (7.6 GW or 50 to 55 TWh).

280 GW of hydro generated 1,064 TWh in 2014.
320 GW of hydro should generate about 1200 TWh.

In 2014, China’s wind power generation capacity reached 114.6 GW, and generated 153.4 TWh of electricity.

20 GW of wind would generate about 27 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity each year.
15 GW of solar would generate about 15 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity each year.
As of October 2015, China plans to install 150-170 GW of solar power by 2020. China’s solar should generate 150-185 TWh in 2020.

China should have generated about 5620 TWh in 2015

China is expected to be generating 7400 TWh in 2020.

China plans to invest 2.5 trillion yuan ($364 billion) into renewable power generation by 2020.

1 trillion yuan for solar power as China seeks to boost solar capacity by five times
700 billion yuan for wind farms
500 billion yuan for hydro power
300 billion yuan tidal and geothermal

China’s investment in renewables sources of electric power in 2015 reached a world record of $110.5 billion – mostly going on wind farms, solar farms and hydro dams (including smaller hydro facilities, not just giant dams)

According to China’s five year energy plan, by 2020,
* hydropower installed capacity will reach 380 million kilowatts (including 40 million kilowatts of pumped storage power stations)
* installed capacity of wind power will reach 210 million kilowatts.
* Solar Installed capacity of more than 110 million kilowatts,
* biomass power generation installed capacity of 15 million kilowatts,
* the total utilization of geothermal heating to 42 million tons of standard coal development goals.

These targets add up to a total of 580 million tons of standard coal by 2020, plus nuclear power, which basically ensures the completion of the 15% non-fossil energy development target for 2020, To achieve non-fossil energy accounts for 20% of the primary energy consumption target to lay a solid foundation.