The LCOE Evolution and Grid Parity Analysis of Centralized Solar Photovoltaic: A Case Study of Ningxia, China

Achieving grid parity in 2021 is the goal of China's photovoltaic development, which is not only on the user side but also on the generation side. Relevant studies indicated that distributed PV has realized grid parity basically in China, while centralized PV, which belongs to the generation side, still has some difficulties in achieving grid parity. Therefore, this paper takes Ningxia Province, which is abundant in solar resources, as the research object and compares LCOE with the traditional coal-fired price to analyze the situation of grid parity of the Pingluo project. It is found that this project cannot reach the goal of grid parity. Then, the future evolution of the local LCOE is analyzed, so as to determine the time of grid parity of Ningxia's centralized PV power stations. In the calculation of LCOE, the presence and absence of environmental benefits and the general and optimistic forecast of cumulative installed capacity are combined into four scenarios. The results show that the centralized PV in Ningxia cannot achieve grid parity in 2021 under the four scenarios. However, in addition to the scenario that there are no environmental benefits and the cumulative installed capacity is generally forecasted and will reach grid parity of the generation side in 2023, the other three situations can achieve the goal in 2022. Moreover, the LCOE value is the lowest under the scenario of considering environmental benefits and the optimistic forecast of future installed capacity.

Automated summary

The goal of achieving grid parity in China's photovoltaic development by 2021 is closer for distributed PV than for centralized PV. A case study in Ningxia Province shows that centralized PV cannot reach grid parity in 2021, although it may do so in 2022 under certain scenarios.