Where Are Distributed PV Systems Suitable to Install?

At present, distributed PV power generation systems in China are mainly concentrated in developed regions with tight electricity demand and remote areas with unstable public grids. They are especially suitable for application in the following sectors:

1) Industrial factory buildings: especially factories with large electricity consumption and high grid purchase prices. Factory roofs are usually large, open and flat, suitable for installing PV arrays; and because of the large power load, distributed PV grid-connected systems can achieve on-site consumption, offsetting part of the purchased electricity and saving users on electricity bills.

2) Commercial buildings: similar effect to industrial parks. The difference is that commercial buildings mostly have concrete roofs, which are more favorable for installing PV arrays; however, they often have aesthetic requirements. According to the characteristics of commercial services such as shopping malls, office buildings, hotels, conference centers and resorts, user load characteristics are generally higher during the day and lower at night, which matches PV generation characteristics well.

3) Agricultural facilities: rural areas have a large amount of usable PV roof space, including self-owned residential roofs, vegetable greenhouses and fish ponds. Rural areas are often at the end of the public grid, where power supply is hard to guarantee and power quality is poor; building distributed PV systems in rural areas can improve the reliability of power supply and power quality.

4) Municipal and other public buildings: due to standardized management, relatively reliable user load and commercial behavior, and high installation enthusiasm, municipal and other public buildings are also suitable for centralized and contiguous distributed PV construction.

5) Remote farming and pastoral areas and islands: because they are far from the grid, there are still millions of people without electricity in remote farming and pastoral areas of China Tibet, Qinghai, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Sichuan and other provinces, as well as on coastal islands. Off-grid PV systems or micro-grid power generation systems combining PV with other energy sources are very suitable for these areas.

Distributed PV grid-connected systems are widely used in education, telecommunications, petrochemical, transportation, military and many other sectors.

Application on a farmer roof

Typical application on the skylight of a railway station