China's PV market capacity is limited with the additional installation capacity of 5MWp and the accumulative total installation capacity of 70MWp in 2005. The additional installation capacity is expected less than 10MWp in 2006 and will make a breakthrough in 2007 along with the arrival of the Olympic Games so as to form a considerable market scale after 2009. Domestic PV market, not large in scale, mainly consists of some demonstration projects in developed areas and township electrification programs in remote areas. The actual domestic installation capacity is expected only 10MWp in 2006, so domestic enterprises are still targeting at the markets as in Europe and North America in the next few years.

China's PV enterprises have taken less risks of the single German market, for the diversifying market demand pattern is gradually taking shape. In addition, apart from that PV markets in Germany and Japan continue to maintain good growing momentum, other PV markets have started across the world such as in the United States, South Korea, Italy, Spain, and Norway, of which Italy PV market demands for 100MWp and Spain over 120MWp in 2006, far exceeding market expectations.

The unique value of PV products lies in the return on investment. Therefore, the quality of their products and conversion efficiency are decisive for the enterprises' intrinsic value. The growth of investment in domestic downstream production line will slide down in 2007 and downstream enterprise will appear polarization to certain degree in 2007-2008.

While the relevant policies have been formulated in China, there is some time to implement specific support regulations due to some other factors such as high power generation cost but with limited subsidies, coordination with the State Grid Corporation and the formulation of grid connection standards. Industrial support and promote regulations stated in "11th Five-Year Plan" have produced limited effect on the development of domestic market scale. As a result, due to its small base, domestic PV market with the growth rate of about 30-40% is difficult to develop in a large scale before 2010. However, the domestic market has huge potential, so several well-known companies like BP have started layout in China. According to the state plan, the total installation capacity will reach 500MWp with annual growth rate of 38% by 2010. SDRC's Energy Research Institute forecasts that the growth rate will be more than 50% in 2020.

  The PV Installation Capacity in China, 2003-2010

The fact that crystalline silicon is the main raw material for PV power generation still holds true within 10 years. In the current situation of raw materials' high profit in the market, it is a good opportunity to develop multi-crystalline silicon technology, so China's polycrystalline silicon companies will encounter the challenges of technique improvement and energy consumption reduction in future. More than 95% of raw materials in China are imported from abroad, price difference is significant at home and abroad (most domestic enterprises basically purchase raw materials from agents), low-degreed guarantee of raw materials' quality somewhat affects the quality of their products, coupled with that domestic semiconductor industries have great demand for them, all of these factors highlight the necessity of polycrystalline silicon production lines in China.

The subsidies for high price of PV electricity is beyond the ability of Chinese government in the recent years, however, to increase investment in crystalline silicon production is practical and necessary. It is noted that stated in the "11th Five-Year" plan, total amount of RMB 3 billion will be allocated to develop crystalline silicon industry in 5 years jointly by the Ministry of Science and Technology, the SDRC and Ministry of Finance.

Although domestic cell companies are expanding rapidly in recent years, the overall output is not significant. In this situation, Wuxi Suntech will continue to occupy a leading position and is expected to produce cells of 135MWp. The actual cell output in China is expected to 322MWp in 2006, while the total cell production capacity is 900MWp-1,000MWp, a capacity release rate of only 30 to 35%.

In PV terminal market, price falling is an inevitable trend. The development process of PV market will witness the PV price fall and related adjustment by government time by time. Thus, the key for PV companies to upgrade their competitiveness lies in scale production, technological improvement and management.

3 Development trend of PV industry
3.1 Price trend of terminal products
3.2 Energy industry development guided by government policies 
3.3 Industrial risks