The impact of carbon neutrality on the solar PV industry
In 2020, major countries in the world have announced their carbon neutrality targets. As of February 2021, more than 120 countries and regions around the world have put forward carbon-neutral goals, and China has clearly put forward the goal of "carbon neutrality by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060". To achieve the goal of carbon neutrality, it is necessary to replace fossil energy with electric energy on the energy consumption side and replace fossil energy with renewable energy power generation on the energy production side. The demand for photovoltaic installations will increase rapidly in the future.
According to the latest research by IRENA, in the context of achieving global carbon neutrality in 2050, electricity will become the most important form of final energy consumption by 2050, accounting for 51%. Among them, 90% of the electricity is supplied by renewable energy power generation, and 63% of the electricity is supplied by wind power and photovoltaic power generation. According to IRENA research, the cumulative global installed capacity of photovoltaics will reach 14,000GW in 2050. In the short term, it is estimated that the global PV installed capacity will be 150-170GW in 2021, and the overseas PV installed capacity will be about 100GW.
Due to the continuous advancement of technology, the price of photovoltaic bids has been continuously reduced, and the investment cost and power generation cost have been declining year by year. In the past ten years, the cost per kilowatt-hour of photovoltaic power generation has fallen by 89%. In China, the cost of photovoltaic power generation is much lower than that of coal. Emission reduction projects such as photovoltaics and wind power can reduce the carbon dioxide they generate and sell them on the national carbon market to obtain economic benefits. Simply put, when a company emits a certain amount of carbon dioxide, it can be carbon neutral by installing photovoltaic power plants.
