Image: pv magazine The world’s largest solar conference and exhibition, the SNEC trade show, diverged this morning and has been postponed due to the Covid-19 crisis. The Shanghai show, which was set to take place in less than two months’ time, was expected to attract more than 2,000 exhibitors and 260,000 visitors this year. Rumors had circulated since the start of the week that the global showpiece would follow in the footsteps of numerous other industry dates which have fallen victim to...

Image: GCL SI The general structure of the PV subsidy regime is quite complicated, but generally the same as that published in 2019, which was a compromise of several parties. China’s Ministry of Finance (MOF) has determined the total subsidy for PV in 2020 to amount to about CNY1.5 billion (US$214 million). CNY500 million of this is allocated for residential rooftop PV and CNY1 billion is for bidding projects, including distributed PV and utility PV projects. Compared with last year, the...

Image: NASA Worldwind/Flickr When Chinese solar manufacturer JA Solar announced less than seven weeks ago that its ambitious production expansion plans would be ‘periodically reviewed’ and ‘subject to market conditions’, it would have been natural to presume the board was covering its back in the case of any sudden downturn in a still-volatile domestic market. Not so, it seems. Despite coronavirus having knocked a dent in Chinese economic performance by ravaging provinces including Zhejiang –...

The operators of renewable energy plants in China could soon benefit from the guaranteed purchase of the clean energy their assets generate, as previously pledged by the central authorities, after a change at the top of the world’s biggest utility. Beijing has replaced energy industry insider Kou Wei with administrator Mao Weiming at the head of the China State Grid barely a year after installing Kou at the top of the state-owned body. With Kou effectively demoted in a reshuffle which will...

Image: Faungg/Flickr The controlling shareholder of Nanjing-based solar module manufacturer and project developer ET Solar has filed for bankruptcy in a Chinese court. Taitong Industry Ltd, which holds a 23.82% stake in ET Solar, applied for bankruptcy in the city of Taizhou, Jiangsu province, in December due to unliquidated debt, pv magazine has learned. The news is the latest shock for ET Solar, which in August 2018 had announced a plan to join forces with cash-rich smaller module making...