China’s solar energy goals for 2015, in the last year, have gone from 5 GW to 10 GW… to 15GW. Last year, on the last day of the year(!), China seemed to reach a total of 1 GW of installed solar power in 2011. This was the first time the country hit that amount, of course. (Note: the U.S. hit that same milestone in 2011, but a little earlier in the year — in September.) That brought China’s total installed solar capacity to about 2 GW (yes, approximately doubling its cumulative capacity).

However, 2011 may look lame compared to 2012. Suntech’s Chief Commercial Officer, Andrew Beebe, expects that China will be a “multi-gigawatt market” in 2012, according to Greentech Media, and Liu Tienan, head of the National Energy Administration (NEA), projects that the country will hit a “total installed capacity of 3 gigawatts in 2012,” according to Xinhua News Agency.

Suffice it to say, China may pass up the U.S. in total, cumulative installed solar capacity within the next year or two. If you’ve read many of our 187 stories filed under the ‘China‘ tag, this should come as no surprise to you. The country is investing a staggering amount of money into installing clean energy. Note, of course, that it is investing a staggering amount of money into energy sources of various sorts. In total, China added about 35 GW of new generating capacity (all sources) in 2011. (Wow.) Nonetheless, its clean energy commitments are nothing to scoff at. I hope will see further increases of its 2015 and 2020 solar targets in 2012 again.

Here are some of Suntech’s Chinese projects (as emailed to Greentech Media):

• Zhangjiakou, Hebei province — 50 megawatts
• Ge’ermu, Qinghai province — 50 megawatts
• Dongtai, Jiangsu province — 20 megawatts
• Yixing, Jiangsu province — 50 megawatts
• Tibet — 20 megawatts
• Ningxia — 10 megawatts

Big projects,… a bunch of them!

Source: Greentech Media | Chinese kids & solar panels via International Rivers

Zachary Shahan (2359 Posts)

I'm the director of CleanTechnica, the most popular clean energy website in the world, and Planetsave, a leading green and science news site. I've been covering green news of various sorts since 2008, and I've been especially focused on solar energy, electric vehicles, bicycling, and wind energy for the past few years. You can also find my work on Scientific American, Reuters, Think Progress, GE's ecomagination site, several sites in the Important Media network, & many other places. To connect on some of your favorite social networks, go to zacharyshahan.com or click on some of the links below.