China Starts 2025 With Almost 40 GW New PV Installations

China’s solar growth slows down as grid concerns and policy shifts take centerstage
China
China’s solar PV market continues to expand in 2025, albeit at a slower rate according to the National Energy Administration. (Photo Credit: TaiyangNews)
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Key Takeaways
  • NEA says China’s newly installed solar PV installations grew by 7.5% YoY in 2M 2025 to 39.47 GW  

  • This is a slower rate of growth compared to an 80% YoY increase in the previous year with 36.72 GW  

  • CPIA expects the country’s rate of installations to be slow this year as policy changes come into effect from June 2025  

China’s National Energy Administration (NEA) has published the latest power generation capacity statistics for the country, pegging new solar PV installations for the months of January 2025 and February 2025 at 39.47 GW. 

These deployments register an increase of 2.75 GW compared to 36.72 GW installed during 2M 2024, representing a 7.5% year-on-year (YoY) increase.  

However, the pace of installations seems to be slowing. Its 2M 2024 PV deployments were 80% higher than the 20.37 GW in 2023, which itself was almost double the 10.86 GW installed during the initial 2 months of 2022 (see China Installed Over 20 GW New Solar In First 2 Months Of 2023). 

This is in line with the China Photovoltaic Industry Association’s (CPIA) projections of a slower growth this year. It forecasts 2025 annual PV additions to settle between 215 GW and 255 GW, after installing a record of more than 277 GW in 2024 (see China’s Solar PV Market To Slow Down To Around 255 GW In 2025). 

The association blames insufficient grid capacity and the impact of market-oriented pricing for renewable energy plants after June 2025 for this subdued forecast. China is switching over to a contracts for difference auction mechanism this year, from a feed-in-tariff-based remuneration system for the renewable energy sector (see World’s Biggest Solar Market Moving Towards CfD Mechanism).  

Yet, BloombergNEF seems to be quite optimistic about China’s solar PV growth this year as it forecasts the country to install 368 GW DC/302 GW AC capacity, contributing to the 698 GW DC global annual total (see BloombergNEF Raises 2025 Solar Installation Forecast To Around 700 GW DC). 

Meanwhile, the NEA says China’s total installed power generation capacity exceeded 3.4 TW at the end of February 2025, comprising 926.22 GW of solar PV and 529.82 GW of wind power.

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