3,3 GW new installed capacity in the first half year of 2014 is indeed impressive for the Chinese solar PV development, but it is quite far from the 14 GW the National Energy Administration (NEA) announced as target for 2014 in the beginning of the year.

New installed PV capacity in China 2006-2013

The installed capacity in the first half of 2014 might not be alarmingly low. In 2013, where the total new installed capacity reached 13 GW, the main installations happened in the second half of the year. The newly released figures for 2014 might however have given NEA reason to reassess the 2014 targets. Several sources cite the head of NEA, Wu Xinxiong, for new 2014 targets: PV-Tech.org says the new target is 13 GW, mainly from distributed PV, while the July Briefing paper from AECEA cite Wu Xinxiong for a target as low as 10 GW. AECEAs own estimation is however more in line with the 13 GW that PV-Tech.org quote.

New distributed PV capacity in first half of 2014 (MW)

New utility based capacity in first half of 2014 (MW)

The main difference between 2013 and 2014 is that NEA now has high priority to distributed PV installations. In 2013 only 1 GW of the total 13 GW new installed capacity was distributed PV capacity, while 12 GW was utility based solar power plants. The targets for 2014 from the beginning of the year were 8 GW distributed PV capacity and 6 GW utility based capacity. The figures for first half of 2014 shows 1 GW distributed capacity and 2.3 GW utility based capacity.

The regional distribution of the new installed capacity for first half of 2014 is clear: The solar power plants are installed in the North and North West China, with Xinjiang in the top with 900 MW, while the distributed capacity is installed in East and South China.