According to a statement about the development of photovoltaic (PV) industry issued by the State Council on Monday, the target of installed capacity for photovoltaic power generation in China will be increased by 75 percent within three years, from the current 20 megawatts to 35 megawatts by 2015, Economic Information reported.

The authority details several existing policies on stimulating the domestic PV demand, and clarifies related rules on electricity price and subsidy mechanism and PV industry access threshold.

The country’s PV industry has been experiencing difficulties in selling products overseas due to anti-dumping and anti-subsidy probes initiated by the United States and the Europe.

“The setting of the target for installed capacity means more solar products could be put into use, and it will be helpful to the PV industry, which has been plagued by excessive production capacity,” said Meng Xiangan, deputy director of the China Renewable Energy Society.

Experts predict that based on investment of 10,000 yuan per kilowatt generated at PV plants and 15,000 yuan per kilowatt generated at distributed solar generation systems, the expansion in installed capacity will bring an additional investment demands worth more than 100 billion yuan.

Subsidizing according to total quantity of electricity generated for distributed PV generation has been introduced, and the time limit for implementation of on-grid electricity price and subsidies is set at 20 years.

In addition, the statement also includes improvements for the payment methods and procedures for the subsidies, and grid enterprises need to make payments every month of the full amount of electricity to PV plants based on prices set in state regulation or the bidding contracts.

“The policies need to be more specified. Only when the standards of electricity pricing and subsidizing come out, players can evaluate the returns on investment,” said Wang Haisheng, an energy analyst at Minsheng Securities.

According to Meng Xiangan, the specified policy on subsidizing PV electricity is expected to be unveiled in August.