Recently, two news regarding photovoltaic power have drawn particular attention: first, according to the latest data from the National Energy Administration, as of the end of July this year, China's installed photovoltaic power capacity has reached 1.286 billion kilowatts, and photovoltaic installed capacity has surpassed coal-fired power for the first time to become the power category with the largest installed scale in China; second, Jiangsu Province has become the first province in China with photovoltaic installed capacity exceeding 100 million kilowatts. A close look at the photovoltaic structure behind these two major achievements reveals that distributed photovoltaic power is the core driving force.

With the rapid expansion of the installed capacity of distributed photovoltaic power, the pattern where centralized new energy bases once "shouldered the sole responsibility" has gradually changed. Distributed photovoltaic power, which is close to users, enables local consumption and features diverse scenarios, is becoming a new force in the green energy transition. At present, distributed photovoltaic power is at a critical juncture of transforming from scale-speed growth to quality-benefit development. Filling the development gaps, standardizing the industry order, and optimizing the industrial ecosystem have become core topics to promote the steady and long-term development of the industry.

Impressive Growth in Scale

In early autumn, on the rooftops of East Jiangqi Village, Zhouzhuang Town, Jiangyin City, Wuxi City, Jiangsu Province, rows of solar panels glisten like a blue ocean under the sun. "We have comprehensively considered factors such as the village's rooftop conditions, residents' willingness, and the village committee's enthusiasm, and selected East Jiangqi Village to build a model for the whole-village contiguous photovoltaic development pilot," said Jiang Xiaoping, director of the Equipment Department of State Grid Jiangyin Power Supply Company. Up to now, 41 villagers in East Jiangqi Village have participated in the project, with a total installed photovoltaic capacity of 1050.7 kilowatts, and it is expected that each household will increase its annual income by about 2160 yuan on average.

The practice of Jiangdong Seventh Village is just a microcosm of Jiangsu's vigorous development of distributed photovoltaic power. As of August 18, Jiangsu Province's cumulative installed capacity of photovoltaic power generation has exceeded 100 million kilowatts, making it the first province in China to break the 100-million-kilowatt mark in photovoltaic installed capacity. Meanwhile, photovoltaic installed capacity accounts for approximately 38% of Jiangsu's total installed power generation capacity, and photovoltaic has surpassed coal-fired power, gas-fired power and wind power to become Jiangsu's largest power source.

Distributed photovoltaic power is the main driver behind Jiangsu's photovoltaic installed capacity surpassing 100 million kilowatts. Jiangsu's installed distributed photovoltaic capacity reached 69.29 million kilowatts, accounting for nearly 70% of the total, ranking first in the country in terms of scale. "As a major economic province and a large power-consuming province, Jiangsu has scarce land resources. Relying on the rooftop resources of industrial park factories, public buildings, and rural residential buildings, a unique new development pattern of distributed photovoltaic power has been formed," said Gao Zhengping, a relevant person in charge of the Development Department of State Grid Jiangsu Electric Power Co., Ltd.

In other parts of the country, distributed photovoltaic power has also seen rapid growth. As of the end of June, the installed capacity of distributed photovoltaic power in Hebei Power Grid exceeded 25 million kilowatts, accounting for 27% of the total installed capacity of regional power sources. By the end of 2025, the installed capacity of distributed photovoltaic power in Anhui Province surpassed 39.7 million kilowatts, accounting for nearly 60% of the total installed capacity of new energy. Distributed photovoltaic power has become an important force driving energy transformation.

From a national perspective, in the first half of this year, the country added 71.77 million kilowatts of grid-connected photovoltaic power, including 2.955 million kilowatts of centralized photovoltaic and 4.222 million kilowatts of distributed photovoltaic. Distributed photovoltaic has become the main driver of industrial growth. In recent years, as a new energy form close to the terminal energy consumption market, distributed photovoltaic has entered a fast track of development by virtue of the unique advantages of "decentralized layout, local utilization, local consumption and flexible adaptation", realizing the comprehensive popularization from points to areas and from cities to rural areas.

Model Optimization to Break Through

Behind the rapid popularization of distributed photovoltaic power, the contradictions and problems accumulated by extensive expansion have gradually emerged. In some regions, the emphasis on scale over quality, construction over operation and maintenance, low-level construction, and disorderly layout have interwoven and overlapped, which has restricted the quality improvement and upgrading of the industry to a certain extent.

The "15th Five-Year Plan for Renewable Energy Development" clearly states that focusing on central and southeastern China and other regions, it will target four key areas: industry and commerce, transportation, construction and agriculture, to promote multi-scenario and diversified development of distributed new energy and intensive and composite spatial utilization. During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, the national installed capacity of new distributed new energy will increase by more than 300 gigawatts. Based on the overall situation of energy transition, how to promote the higher-quality development of distributed photovoltaic power generation?

Whole-village and whole-garden development is a key move. Recently, construction is in full swing on the rooftops of Magu Village, Qizhuang Village, Zhangzhuang Town, Peixian County, Xuzhou City. The 3.9-megawatt household distributed photovoltaic power project being implemented here is not a simple "installation for every household", but the first innovative practice in Jiangsu Province adopting the "whole-village overall planning, confluence and voltage boost" model. This model provides a dedicated channel for the collection and transmission of photovoltaic power, which operates separately from the daily electricity consumption of villagers. It not only reduces mutual interference but also facilitates metering and protection as well as grid security.

Yan Qiangqiang, a senior engineer at State Grid Xuzhou Power Supply Company, introduced that under the traditional decentralized development model, due to the small scale and scattered connection applications, the development costs are high and the benefits are difficult to guarantee. The power grid also faces challenges such as repeated construction and high regulation difficulty. The development depth of household photovoltaic projects in villages usually only reaches 10% to 15%, and a large number of rooftop resources are "visible but unavailable". If we continue to simply add projects, it will not only sacrifice the safety of the power grid, but also farmers will face the dilemmas of long connection application cycles and limited accessible capacity. Through whole-village development, the developable photovoltaic capacity of villages can be greatly increased to more than 70%. This means that more farmers can install photovoltaic systems and enjoy green benefits, and rooftop resources are more fully utilized.

Reporters learned that in response to the grid connection pressure of distributed photovoltaic (PV), State Grid Jiangsu Electric Power has promoted government departments to issue the Implementation Plan for the Development of Distributed Photovoltaic in Jiangsu Province (2026-2030). It adheres to the simultaneous implementation of "village-scale contiguous development" and "park-scale centralized construction". Local governments coordinate rooftop resources, introduce main entities such as state-owned and private enterprises, conduct unified filing in the name of non-natural persons, and undertake the investment, construction, and operation and maintenance of the whole-village PV resource development as well as related current collection facilities and grid connection supporting facilities. Power supply companies formulate grid connection plans according to the "one village, one policy" principle, and are responsible for providing public grid connection points and the construction of external supporting lines to improve the efficiency of development and construction. At present, the whole-village development pilot has been carried out in 48 villages in 12 cities including Lianyungang and Xuzhou.

With the substantial increase in the penetration rate of distributed photovoltaic power, many practitioners believe that the development potential in the eastern region is already very limited. Zhu Weiping, Director of the Smart Distribution Network Department of the Distribution Network Department of State Grid Jiangsu Electric Power, said that the whole-village and whole-garden development model has changed the previous "small, scattered and fragmented" development approach. Adopting a large-scale development model under the unified coordination of the government, cooperation with power supply companies and active participation of business entities has effectively improved the progress efficiency of distributed photovoltaic projects and avoided resource waste and investment risks. Large-scale development has also led to a significant reduction in procurement, construction and operation and maintenance costs. Moreover, costs are balanced through channels such as green certificate transactions, boosting overall returns. "Under the traditional development model in the past, many resources that originally failed to meet the yield standards have become attractive for investment under the new model. This means there is still huge room for the growth of the distributed photovoltaic market.

Technological Innovation for Quality Improvement

PV power generation is "dependent on the weather". To achieve reliable replacement, it is not only necessary to boost the installed capacity, but also to ensure that it can be "connected to the grid, transmitted smoothly, and used stably".

Technological innovation is the breakthrough to solving the problem of grid connection of distributed photovoltaic power. Han Jun, a senior engineer at the Distribution Network Department of State Grid Jiangsu Economic Research Institute, introduced: "With the help of artificial intelligence, satellite remote sensing technology and other tools, we have built a distributed photovoltaic resource census and carrying capacity analysis platform, which can accurately locate rooftop distributed photovoltaic resources across the province and complete a scientific evaluation of grid carrying capacity. This supports the scientific planning of the power grid and lays a solid technical foundation for the efficient and stable grid connection of massive distributed photovoltaic power.

To address the pain points such as the decentralized connection of household PV and insufficient carrying capacity of rural power grids, Jiangsu has also innovatively launched the "satellite remote sensing calculation + contiguous development" model: relying on satellite remote sensing images and deep learning algorithms, it accurately calculates PV potential and systematically clarifies the resource inventory of rooftops. At the same time, in combination with the actual conditions of villages and power grids, it encourages medium-voltage converged grid connection to improve the efficiency of PV development and construction, and upgrades the distribution network to continuously expand the access capacity of distributed PV.

Taming highly volatile photovoltaic power into a grid-friendly power source with stable supply relies crucially on energy storage. In Wan Village, Huhe Town, Dangtu County, Anhui Province, rows of "roof power stations" continuously convert light energy into green electricity. In recent years, power supply departments have steadily promoted the construction of centralized grid connection for distributed photovoltaic power in Huhe Town; however, the continuous growth of photovoltaic installed capacity has brought certain pressures to the stable operation of grassroots distribution networks and the local consumption of new energy.

To solve the difficult problem of photovoltaic consumption in rural areas, State Grid Dangtu County Power Supply Company of Anhui Province has built a new model of on-site consumption of station-side energy storage relying on the Wanshan Sponge Smart Station under its jurisdiction. Zhu Wenbo, director of the company's Marketing Department, introduced that this station is the first sponge smart station in Maanshan. Through intelligent source-storage collaborative regulation and control, the station can store surplus green power during the peak photovoltaic power generation period and release energy accurately during the peak power consumption period, effectively suppressing the voltage fluctuations caused by photovoltaic grid connection, efficiently solving the pain points of "difficult consumption of high generation and peak-valley imbalance" of rural photovoltaic power generation, and greatly improving the local utilization rate of new energy in the region and the power supply stability of the distribution network.

Faced with current challenges such as insufficient distribution and transformation capacity in some rural areas, the need for massive investment in grid renovation and upgrading, and the need to further open up market-oriented income channels for distributed photovoltaic power generation, experts said that to promote the sound and rapid development of distributed photovoltaic power generation, barriers such as improving the carrying capacity of distribution networks, perfecting market mechanisms, and refining the protection of rights and interests still need to be continuously overcome.

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