Relevantly small market capacity and lack of core technology are two biggest challenges facing China's PV industry. Jiangsu provincial government has been working to support PV industry with market oriented policies.

Independent innovation and mastering core technologies are the most important factors for international competitiveness. Xu Yuan, head of the Wuxi-based Shangde Research Institute, said that amid economic globalization, only by fully utilizing and integrating capital, technologies and talent resources across the world can innovative enterprises seize a dominant position in emerging industries. At present, Shangde has established six research and development centers worldwide and employs dozens of foreign experts.

Moreover, a group of backbone photovoltaic (PV) enterprises in Jiangsu Province has already started to localize PV technologies and equipment. It is estimated that by 2012, all PV equipment in Jiangsu Province will be produced independently.

Market cultivation is seriously lagging behind industrial development, and this is most evident in the PV industry. Solving issues related to on-grid electricity prices is the key to cultivatating and launching the PV market.

The opinions on promoting PV power generation in Jiangsu Province published in June 2009 announced the implementation of a PV-generated electricity fixed-price policy, under which targeted electricity prices at grid-connected ground power stations in 2009, 2010 and 2011 will be 2.15 yuan per kWh, 1.7 yuan per kWh and 1.4 yuan per kWh respectively. Jiangsu’s move will have an important modeling effect on future domestic grid-connected PV development.

Opening up the domestic new-energy market by launching PV application demonstration projects has become an important means to promote the healthy development of the PV industry.

The Wuxi municipal government has decided to implement a million square-meter grid-connected rooftop PV power generation project this year. By 2011, the city's "solar roofs" will be over one million square meters in area and the construction of a grid-connected rooftop power generation system with a total installed capacity of 80 megawatts will be completed.

By People's Daily Online