Instead of talking about market and price, quality was the key word at the 'Quality China' Solar Summit in Changzhou, Jiangsu province, which was held on Jan 15 and 16 and hosted by German testing and certification company TUV Rheinland.

 

The event, designed to offer companies and researchers chances to share opinions and exchange ideas about photovoltaic system quality, attracted attentions from counselors of the State Council such as Shi Dinghuan and almost industry leading companies such as Yingli Group, Trina Solar and Huawei.

 

"PV plant installation increased significantly in 2014, which suggests China is not only a manufacturing giant but also a world leading PV plant installer," said Shi Dinghuan, on Jan 16.

 

"Production capacity should not be the only factor considered by businesses because the industry is looking to have rational development," said Shi.

 

China installed a 10.58GW PV plant in 2014 and has projected to install 100GW photovoltaic systems during its 13th Five-Year Plan. By the end of 2014, China has a total of 30 GW PV plant systems connected to the grid.

 

In June 2014, a report prepared by Hanergy Group Holdings and the China New Energy Chamber of Commerce showed that China has overtaken Germany to become the largest solar power producer in 2013.

 

The Chinese solar industry has experienced a prolonged downturn since 2011 due to overcapacity and a tough foreign trade environment. In the most difficult period, the number of solar panel producers fell from 262 in 2011 to 112 in 2013, according to Wang Bohua, of the China Photovoltaic Industry Alliance. As a result, companies have been paying more attention on quality after this crisis, rather than quantity.

 

"Before 2011, companies were paying less attention on quality and more on quantity. However, quality became more important after 2011 because the whole industry is since facing a crisis caused by overcapacity," said Zhou Wei, quality control vice president of Trina Solar in Changzhou, Jiangsu province.

 

Experts said the lack of an effective quality control mechanism, low price competition, introduction of new materials and a relatively short production history were main causes of quality problems in China and call on more national quality standards to be implemented to support industry growth.

"If PV plant companies have no control over quality, there is no guarantee that a PV system could have 20 to 25 year operating lifetime, so the economic target could not be achieved," said Shi.

"Quality and innovation are two key factors that support development of China solar power industry," he added.

China's PV plant businesses

Experts expect China to continue to encourage the distribution of PV systems in 2015, as it introduces more incentive policies.

"In 2014, government decided to build more distributed PV plants. However, we see a large percent of system installed are still ground-mounted, which means policy did not take effect yet. We expect there will be new incentive and supporting schemes to future foster the development of distributed systems," said Robert Struwe, vice president of solar and fuelcell technology of TUV Rheinland in China.

Authorities have issued several policies to boost demand for PV plants in domestic market since 2013, especially encouraging distributed solar power generation to lower power loss in transmission and overcapacity.

In Sept 2014, China's National Energy Administration issued a statement aiming at giving long term support to the solar power industry. The statement solved some bottleneck problems in the industry, for instance, allowing distributed PV plants directly trade electricity with end-users, increasing the power output quota, allowing distributed PV plants enjoy same benchmark price as a large utility and encouraging financial institutions provide bankability services to PV plants.

In Nov 2014, the unprecedented joint pledge made by China and United States to cut greenhouse gas emissions further affirmed China 's solar power mission. According to that joint pledge, China will commit to increasing the share of non-fossil fuel energy to about 20 percent by 2030.

"We have tremendous business opportunities and solar power will become an important energy in China," said Wang Bohua during TUV Rheinland's conference.

Opportunities for the quality testing and certification industries

The increasing demand of quality products in solar power sector has created business opportunities for testing and certification companies such as TUV Rheinland.

As the organizer of the "Quality China" Solar Summit, TUV Rheinland has long committed to providing testing and certification services for PV components and modules in China. It has occupied the largest market share in Chinese PV system testing market.

To better capture increasing demand in China, TUV Rheinland is continuing to offer innovative products to meet clients' changing demands over the past decade.

 

The company started to help some financial institutions to enter into solar industry in 2013 by offering quality control services including feasibility surveys, installation supervision and follow-up inspections with due diligence.

 

"As a financial institution, we do not have much knowledge about the solar power industry, so we have to rely on TUV Rheinland's reports to secure our return," said Wu Qiping, a manager from China Financial leasing Co.

 

TUV Rheinland signed a memorandum with ZTT Solar and Dinghe Insurance on Jan 16 to start corporations in areas such as insurance, finance and due diligence services. The agreement allows international financial capital companies and world leading professional technical platforms explore business opportunities in China.

 

According to the memorandum, ZZT will build two distributed PV plants in Guangdong and Fujian provinces and TUV Rheinland will evaluate the projects from the designing stage.

 

TUV Rheinland will check all project-related items such as project design, power output and meteorological conditions before construction and offer installation supervision and an acceptance assessment upon the project's completion. The services are expected to ensure the interests and return of insurance companies.

 

Based on TUV Rheinland's reports, Dinghe will provide insurance service to ZZT and will be the first power output insurance provider in China.