Zhang Yong on photovoltaic agriculture: We must abandon the mentality of making quick money and cashing in on subsidies
Sina Finance News - The "2015 China International Energy Summit," jointly hosted by the China Machinery Industry Federation, China Petroleum and the Chemical Industry Federation, was held in Beijing from September 7-9, 2015. Zhang Yong, Chairman of the China Photovoltaic Agriculture Working Committee, spoke.
The following is the transcript of the speech:
Zhang Yong: Good afternoon everyone. I come from the China Photovoltaic Agriculture Working Committee. Due to time constraints, I will briefly introduce the situation of the Photovoltaic Agriculture Working Committee. The Photovoltaic Working Committee mainly promotes photovoltaic agriculture projects. In 2013, we built several photovoltaic agriculture bases in Shandong and established a photovoltaic agriculture industry alliance. Due to time constraints, I will briefly talk about the situation of photovoltaic agriculture. As an emerging industry, under the influence of various backgrounds such as photovoltaic agriculture, energy and policy, once launched, photovoltaic agriculture gained strong support from across the photovoltaic industry and was regarded as the savior to boost the entire industry.
Let me talk about the solutions for photovoltaic agriculture. Photovoltaic agriculture has seen extensive development over the past two years, and the specific forms it takes are also diverse. To sum up, there are mainly several methods. The first is agriculture-photovoltaic complementarity, animal husbandry-photovoltaic, fishery-photovoltaic, and photovoltaic complementarity. Agriculture-photovoltaic complementarity mainly involves vegetables, flowers, seedlings and so on. Animal husbandry-photovoltaic mainly involves forage grass, cattle, sheep, pig sheds and so on. Fishery-photovoltaic is fish farming, and photovoltaic water conservancy is irrigation and so on.
Photovoltaic agriculture projects are comprehensive undertakings combining multiple models. Each photovoltaic agriculture project has multiple models, and multiple modules form a benign ecological cycle. Adapting to local conditions, scientifically formulating photovoltaic agriculture project plans according to local climate, traditional planting and relevant national policies, one cannot simply copy other people's models. No matter which model is adopted, national or local government policies must be strictly implemented. When doing photovoltaic agriculture projects, attention must be paid to land use conditions, including forest land, wetland, grassland and inland river beaches with flood discharge functions. The state supports two photovoltaic agriculture projects. Below I will briefly introduce the agriculture-photovoltaic complementarity project.
But we must also see that since the development of photovoltaic agriculture to now, the marginal policy environment, the lack of unified construction standards, and the land enclosure behavior of individual photovoltaic enterprises have gradually caused it to face more doubts and produce many problems, and even voices of opposition have appeared. Facing these problems squarely, resolving doubts, straightening out the thinking for the continued healthy development of photovoltaic agriculture, and enabling photovoltaic and agriculture, this new couple, to support each other after combining, achieve win-win and mutual benefit, and each get what it needs - this is the pressing task for the development of photovoltaic agriculture.
Photovoltaic investors began to focus on photovoltaic agriculture largely because photovoltaic projects are constrained by land, and combining with agriculture happens to solve the photovoltaic land use problem on the basis of not changing land use, causing photovoltaic agriculture projects to begin to show a situation where photovoltaic enterprises drive it and agricultural enterprises passively accept it. With the increase in photovoltaic agriculture projects, experts in the agricultural field have felt a land crisis, worried that agricultural land will be eroded by photovoltaic enterprises, and the national level has also begun to pay attention to the issue of cross-sector land use in agriculture, successively issuing the notice of the Ministry of Land and Resources and the Ministry of Agriculture on further supporting the healthy development of facility agriculture, and the notice issued by four ministries and commissions on strengthening supervision and risk prevention of industrial and commercial capital leasing agricultural land.
At present, photovoltaic agriculture is in a state of disordered development. The biggest problem is the lack of standards. Whether technical standards or management standards, there is no unified standard. These are some projects under construction. In photovoltaic agriculture, photovoltaic and agriculture should promote each other and develop together. The reason photovoltaic agriculture has attracted attention is that the main advantage photovoltaic shows in agriculture is assisting the transformation of traditional agriculture to modern agriculture. Through preliminary demonstration, the participation of photovoltaic experts and agricultural experts and specialized precise design, and the economic benefits shown after the project is connected to the grid, more and more enterprises see the pie of photovoltaic agriculture development. It is necessary to inject new management thinking and new development vitality into agriculture.
As a new industrial model of new energy + new agriculture, if photovoltaic agriculture wants to achieve sustained and stable healthy development, it must abandon narrow-minded thinking models such as making quick money and cashing in on subsidies. It must clarify the dominant position of agriculture, abandon the idea that doing photovoltaic agriculture is doing photovoltaics, and must treat photovoltaic agriculture as a new type of modern agricultural development model. It must ensure that the intervention of photovoltaics will not affect the red line of basic agricultural production, determine a development model with agricultural development as the main body, multiple industries promoting each other, agricultural income as the main body, and multiple incomes coexisting. This is the foundation for the development of photovoltaic agriculture and cannot be shaken.
Accelerate the formulation of standards, promote standardized production, and effectively prevent and guard against the emergence of projects that change the nature of land and affect production functions. Make photovoltaic agriculture projects truly become leaders and practitioners in transforming the agricultural development mode and developing modern agriculture in an industrial way, rather than becoming practitioners who use agriculture to solve the problem of scarce land resources for photovoltaic power generation projects or historical sinners who change the nature of land and affect production functions.
At present, our requirements for agriculture have already shifted from pursuing quantity and output to green efficiency and energy conservation and environmental protection. The traditional agricultural operation model can no longer satisfy the current development of agriculture. The 2015 Central Document No. 1 directly proposed that for China to be strong, agriculture must be strong. To make agriculture strong, it must quickly shift from extensive management that pursues output and relies on resource consumption to intensive development that places equal emphasis on quantity, quality and efficiency, focuses on improving competitiveness, and focuses on sustainability, transform the agricultural development mode, develop modern agriculture in an industrial way, and take the path of modern agricultural development with efficient output, safe products, resource conservation and environmental friendliness.
Enterprises participating in photovoltaic agriculture should adhere to the correct development direction, maintain a calm and restrained attitude, view the photovoltaic agriculture industry with a long-term sustainable perspective, and actively promote the healthy and orderly development of the industry. I believe the future of photovoltaic agriculture will be limitless. For the industry to develop, standards must go first, because without standards, many enterprises run horse races and enclose land under the guise of photovoltaic agriculture, occupying land, building ground-mounted power stations, casually planting things on the ground, and no one cares at all about the agricultural benefits. Many enterprises also conduct promotional hype through photovoltaic agriculture, but in reality it is only for tax preferences and fiscal subsidies. This form not only draws criticism from land and agriculture departments. This year the Energy Bureau issued a document stating that projects not meeting standards will not be subsidized. This is a very clear signal and must attract high attention from enterprises. For the photovoltaic agriculture industry to develop sustainably and healthily, normative policies and standards must be formulated.
On August 29, the China Photovoltaic Agriculture Industry Strategic Alliance held a photovoltaic agriculture standards seminar at the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference Auditorium. At the meeting, 6 leaders and 17 experts, scholars from government agencies and industry-university-research institutions across the country, colleges and universities, photovoltaic enterprises, agricultural companies and other units, and operators from the front lines of agricultural production, used accurate wording, precise data and their own feelings, as well as the problems existing in the development of photovoltaic agriculture, to interpret and analyze from multiple aspects and multiple angles. They expounded on the importance and necessity of the compilation work of the "Photovoltaic Agriculture Standards," laying a theoretical foundation for the compilation work of the "Photovoltaic Agriculture Standards." Here I hope that our photovoltaic agriculture, photovoltaic industry, agricultural enterprises and friends who aspire to enter photovoltaic agriculture will band together for common development and jointly contribute, and truly build China's photovoltaic agriculture products into a modern agricultural industry developed in an industrial way with the highest comprehensive technical level, the optimal agricultural industry model, the highest degree of clean energy, the best ecological environmental protection, and the best social and economic benefits.
A nation with hope cannot be without heroes, and even more so cannot be without pioneers. The China Photovoltaic Agriculture Industry Alliance is the vanguard of our photovoltaic agriculture industry. Welcome everyone to participate in the compilation work of the "Photovoltaic Agriculture Standards," unite from top to bottom, persevere, and contribute a modest effort to the development of photovoltaic agriculture. Thank you everyone!