Photovoltaic agriculture may become a new industrial model in China
?? In recent years, with policy support from various countries, solar energy has become the fastest-growing form of energy application in the world. China has spared no effort in the development of photovoltaic power generation, encouraging the construction of photovoltaic power stations while promoting the continuous penetration of photovoltaic applications into other industries. Among these, due to the commonality and complementarity of photovoltaics and agriculture in land use, the industry has been seeking a breakthrough in combining the two, making it one of the current key development directions.
Since the anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations by Europe and the United States, with the international photovoltaic market in the doldrums, a large number of domestic photovoltaic enterprises have also fallen into difficulty, and the problem of overcapacity is severe. Fundamentally speaking, for China's photovoltaic industry to break through the crisis, the key lies in whether it can gradually achieve self-transformation and shake off its dependence on exports, which requires it to deeply cultivate the domestic application market.
If we look closely, photovoltaic products are already everywhere around us: Tesla's charging stations use photovoltaic power generation, street lamps are equipped with solar panels, and solar-powered watches and charging bags can be seen everywhere... Of course, the ways of using solar energy go far beyond these; distributed and large-scale photovoltaic power stations are the "main event." However, after more than a decade of rapid expansion, the photovoltaic industry now finds it difficult to gain local government support by simply doing power generation business alone. Combining photovoltaics with other industries has become a way out and is also the direction encouraged by policy, and the "agriculture + photovoltaics" model is one of them.
Shi Dinghuan, chairman of the China Renewable Energy Society, said that in the long run, developing photovoltaic agriculture is of great significance to China's agricultural transformation, and in the short term, photovoltaic agriculture is to a certain extent an effective measure to solve the current predicament of the photovoltaic industry.
"Compared with the restrictions of general large-scale ground projects, which require unused land such as barren hills and barren slopes, photovoltaic agriculture has more advantages to bring into play." Li Jianzhi, chairman of Changsheng Ridian Solar Energy Technology Co., Ltd., which is engaged in photovoltaic agriculture, said that to take the path of "encircling the cities from the countryside," photovoltaic application enterprises need to transform and upgrade and increase research and development efforts for products used at the terminal end.
It is reported that the first phase of GCL Energy's 300 MW project in Inner Mongolia is about to begin construction. The first phase plans to invest 300 million yuan to build a 1,500-mu agricultural greenhouse project. Among this, 400 mu of photovoltaic agricultural greenhouses will be built, with a photovoltaic installed capacity of 30 MW; Changsheng Ridian has also cooperated with the Jimo city government. At present, 40 MW of photovoltaic agricultural greenhouse power stations have been built, and another 60 MW will be connected to the grid before the end of the year, with annual power generation reaching 120 million kWh. The output value of photovoltaic agriculture and photovoltaic power generation revenue will reach 300 million yuan and 144 million yuan respectively, and in the next three years it will be expanded to a 30,000-mu photovoltaic agriculture industrial base. Due to strong subsidies, the development of photovoltaic agriculture has already developed rapidly in many provinces and cities.
Li Jianzhi revealed that although the prospects for agricultural industrialization are promising, the early-stage investment is large and the returns take a long time, so it is very difficult to obtain financing, and the proportion of self-owned funds is quite large. Companies entering this field often quickly face a predicament in which they cannot sustain themselves.
But this does not mean there is no solution. The model proposed by Changsheng Ridian is to jointly build agricultural photovoltaic parks with local governments, combining photovoltaic power generation business with the cultivation of advantageous crops in various places, while also designing an incubator function and holding maker competitions to bring in business teams. Among this, the power generation revenue of photovoltaic power stations can be mortgaged to banks to bring loans, thereby solving the early-stage funding dilemma of developing agricultural projects, while combining local agricultural production advantages with introduced entrepreneurial teams brings possibilities for the long-term development of the park industry.
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