At a seminar on February 27 reviewing the photovoltaic (PV) industry’s performance in 2024 and forecasting trends for 2025, Wang Bohua, Honorary Chairman of the China Photovoltaic Industry Association (CPIA), stated that China’s new solar capacity in 2025 is expected to fall within the range of 215 GW to 255 GW.
Original by NLS
At a seminar on February 27 reviewing the photovoltaic (PV) industry’s performance in 2024 and forecasting trends for 2025, Wang Bohua, Honorary Chairman of the China Photovoltaic Industry Association (CPIA), stated that China’s new solar capacity in 2025 is expected to fall within the range of 215 GW to 255 GW. This represents a year-on-year decline of 8.1% to 22.5%, compared to 277.57 GW of new capacity added in 2024, according to CPIA’s projections.
By the end of 2024, China’s cumulative PV capacity had reached 885.68 GW. In the 2025 Energy Work Guidelines released by the National Energy Administration (NEA), the government has set a target of at least 200 GW in new renewable energy capacity. For context, China added 296 GW of new wind and solar capacity in 2023 and 358 GW in 2024.
However, Wang pointed to several factors that are likely to contribute to the slowdown in new capacity in 2025. Among them, policy changes—including the Distributed PV Management Measures and market reforms in electricity pricing for renewable energy—are expected to create a period of uncertainty in the industry. The timing gap between the national-level policies and the provincial-level implementation is another key factor causing caution within the sector.
Furthermore, resource constraints are becoming more apparent. Land-use regulations for large-scale PV farms are becoming stricter, and the approval process has grown more complex. Meanwhile, distributed solar projects are increasingly limited by grid capacity issues, particularly in the low-voltage sections of distribution networks. With these challenges ahead, the 2025 solar installation forecast is marked by considerable uncertainty.