Solar power generation capacity soars

The photovoltaic (PV) power generation installation capacity connected to the China State Grid by the end of September was up 415 percent from the same period last year, the State Electricity Regulatory Commission (SERC) said on Wednesday. The PV power generation capacity connected to the China State Grid, China's largest power grid operator, stood at 2.71 million kilowatts at the end of September, about 2.18 million kilowatts higher than the same period last year, said Tan Rongyao, an SERC spokesperson, at a press conference. The China State Grid purchased 2.48 billion kilowatt hours of PV power in the January to September period, up 537 percent year on year. PV power generation is a means of generating electrical power by converting solar radiation into direct current electricity using semiconductors. A bottleneck for the sector is the difficulty it faces in connecting to the state power grid. The China State Grid announced on Oct. 26 a series of measures to facilitate connecting solar power plants to the grid.