'Agrivoltaics' lights up rural revitalization efforts

A grower tends to his photovoltaic mushroom farm in Gutian county, Fujian province, in November. [Wang Dongming/China News Service]

The company will continue to promote its agrivoltaic industry while keeping up with the development trends and policies of the new energy sector, He added.

"We will continue to expand the scale of agrivoltaic projects, create more job opportunities, and eventually push forward the process of rural revitalization."

With a total rooftop area of around 27.3 billion square meters and over 80 million rural households capable of photovoltaic installation, China's rural areas have demonstrated huge potential for agrivoltaic development, said the National Energy Administration.

Integrating clean energy technology and rural revitalization can help create a powerful engine for the smart and green development of rural areas, said Yang Yongping, president of the North China Electric Power University, during a forum.

"The vast rural areas possess abundant biological resources, power supply and profit potential. We should tailor our efforts to local conditions and vigorously promote the development of new energy sources," Yang said.

Currently, the cumulative number of rural households installed with distributed photovoltaics has exceeded 5 million, driving investment of over 500 billion yuan, data from the NEA showed.

As of end-September, the cumulative installed capacity of distributed photovoltaics nationwide had exceeded the 100 million kW threshold to reach 105 million kW.

This has taken the nation's total installed capacity of photovoltaic power generation to 520 million kW, according to the NEA.