Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 73 (2017) 19

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Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rser

Photovoltaic agriculture - New opportunity for photovoltaic applications in MARK

China
Jinlin Xue
College of Engineering, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210031, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A BS T RAC T

Keywords: Photovoltaic industry has been an important development direction of China's strategic emerging industries
Photovoltaics since 2012, and more and more attentions have been paid to broaden the domestic demand to solve the problem
Agriculture of overcapacity of China's PV industry. Photovoltaic agriculture, the combination of photovoltaic power
Renewable energy generation and agricultural activities, is a natural response to supply the green and sustainable electricity for
Development
agriculture. There are several main application modes of photovoltaic agriculture such as photovoltaic
Opportunity
agricultural greenhouse, photovoltaic breeding, photovoltaic wastewater purication, photovoltaic water
pumping and new type rural solar power station. Photovoltaic agriculture can eectively alleviate the
contradiction between more population and less land, powerfully promote the development of controlled
environmental agriculture, evidently increase economic benets of farmers, and signicantly improve
environment due to emissions reduction in China. In recent years, photovoltaic agriculture has a rapid
development in China due to powerful support policies, ourishing controlled environmental agriculture,
policy-oriented rural electrication and promising electric machinery for greenhouse. Therefore, photovoltaic
agriculture provides new opportunity for China's photovoltaic industry, thus not only to solve the dilemma of
overcapacity for China's photovoltaic industry eectively, but also to accelerate the development of modern
agriculture in China. However, the more theoretical researches and practical exploration must be conducted to
optimize the combination of photovoltaic power generation and agricultural planting. And the unied standards
must be established to standardize the design and scale of projects of photovoltaic agriculture. Also,
photovoltaic enterprises need to produce widely applicable photovoltaic products for agricultural production
and farmers life.

1. Introduction
Solar energy is the most safe, reliable and clean natural energy by
far, and PV power generation is one of the most important ways of
utilizing solar energy in the world. In the face of crisis on global energy
and environment today, PV power generation has obvious advantages
in resource sustainability and environmental friendliness.
PV industry has been explosively developed on the basis of the
combination of semiconductor technology and new energy require-
ments, and has been taken as an important development direction of
China's strategic emerging industries [1,2]. Now China has become one
of the most important countries in PV products manufacturing in the
world. Fig. 1 illustrates the annual production and installed capacity of
the China's PV industry from 2008 to 2014 [35]. From Fig. 1, the
annual production and installed capacity of the China's PV industry are
increasing gradually, but the main market of China's PV products is
abroad. Of course, it experiences ups and downs. Since 2004, China's
PV industry had shown a rapid development due to the demand for
solar energy in Europe and USA, and the polysilicon price topped to
$400/kg, as shown in Table 1. But, China's PV industry suered
severely because the global nancial crisis has led to weak markets in
USA and Europe from 2008. Particularly, anti-dumping and anti-
subsidy survey launched by USA and Europe in the end of 2011 pushed
this dilemma to the extreme - serious overcapacity of China PV
industry, and the polysilicon price fell to $15/kg. Until 2013, the PV
market became warmer mainly due to China's support policies which
have activated the domestic market, the annual installed capacity was
up to 10 GW compared to 4.5 GW in 2012 (see Fig. 1). In addition, the
annual production was increased rapidly from 25.1 GW in 2013 to
47.37 GW in 2014, but the annual installed capacity was added up to
2 GW compared with that of 2013. Therefore, the warmer domestic
market did not solve the dilemma of overcapacity of China's PV
industry eectively, and it is necessary to broaden the application of
PV products.

E-mail address: xuejinlin@njau.edu.cn.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2017.01.098
Received 12 December 2015; Received in revised form 21 November 2016; Accepted 15 January 2017
Available online 24 January 2017
1364-0321/ 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
J. Xue Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 73 (2017) 19

Nomenclature

AEVs Agricultural electric vehicles

CAAPRC Certication and Accreditation Administration of the People's Republic of China
CDB China Development Bank
CEA Controlled Environmental Agriculture
COD Chemical Oxygen Demand
CPC Communist Party of China
GOSC General Oce of the State Council
LED Light Emitting Diode
MIIT Ministry of Industry and Information Technology
MLSS Mixed liquor suspended solids
MOF Ministry of Finance
NDRC National Development and Reform Commission
NEA National Energy Administration
NGOA National Government Oces Administration
PV Photovoltaic
SAQSIQ State Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine
SAPRC Standardization Administration of the People's Republic of China
SGCC State Grid Corporation of China
SLGOPAD The State Leading Group Oce of Poverty Alleviation and Development
TN Total Nitrogen
TP Total Phosphorus
VAT Value added tax

Table 1
Developing stages of China's PV industry.

Stage Polysilicon price Main reasons

Capacity/ GW

Rapid development Up to $400/kg Support policies of PV power

period generation, e.g. German Renewable
(20042007) Energy Act and USA's PV Buildings
Plan and Million Solar Roof Plan.

First adjustment Down to $40/kg Global financial crisis and reduced

period subsidies for PV power generation in
(20082009) Germany and Italy.

Explosive recovery Rising quickly Scrambling for installation due to the

period to $90/kg fallen price and China's economy
(20092010) stimulus plan of $602 billion.

Year Severe adjustment Down to $15/kg Extremely serious overcapacity mainly

period due to USA and Europe's anti-
Fig. 1. Annual production and installed capacity of PV industry in China from 2008 to (20112012) dumping and anti-subsidy survey.
2014. It should be noted that the production capacity refers to the manufacturing goods
(PV panels, inverter, etc.) for the Chinese PV industry, and the installed capacity is about Gradual warmer Rising slightly Densely issued PV support policies in
the consumption of the goods by the Chinese PV industry. period to $18 / kg China, solved China-EU's PV trade
(2013~) disputes and Japan's PV subsidy
Modern agriculture depends heavily on the energy supply obtained policy.

mainly from fossil fuels [6]. It is a natural response that PV technology

is applied to agriculture sector, called PV agriculture, that is, solar PV
2. Application modes of PV agriculture
power generation is utilized to supply the green and sustainable
electricity for agricultural production activities such as planting,
Green and sustainable solar energy has become a natural choice,
breeding, irrigating, etc. Jarach [7] studied economic feasibility of
due to the increase in demand for energy in agriculture and the
the application of PV to agriculture 20 years ago. Subsequently, Reuss
negative environmental impacts and limited sources for fossil fuels. PV
et al. [8] mainly considered technical possibilities, and performed
agriculture has a broad industrialization prospects mainly with the
experiments in ventilation, pumping and irrigation.
following application modes.
PV technology has been applied to agriculture gradually due to
technological progress and cost reduction in recent years [9,10]. China
is a large agricultural country and is developing modern agriculture 2.1. PV agricultural greenhouse
vigorously, PV technology combined with agriculture can not only
realize energy saving and environmental protection, but also promote One of purposes of PV agricultural greenhouse is to obtain higher
the transformation of traditional agriculture to modern agriculture. In agricultural income by exibly creating a suitable environment for
fact, it can expand the domestic market to cast o the dependence on crops growth. For example, farmers can plant high value added crops
exports and eectively solve the crisis of overcapacity. such as organic agricultural products and rare and expensive seedlings.
The anti-season planting is achieved because greenhouse can be heated

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in winter [11]. According to transparent and semi-transparent PV

panels, it can increase the amount of sunlight to enter the greenhouse
[12,13], and by using selective plastic lms, it can provide correspond-
ing wavelengths of light absorption for growth of dierent plants [14].
Also, it can integrate the natural radiation with supplementary lighting
powered by PV energy [15], or it can provide light for plant growth in
night with LED lamp using PV power generation in the daytime [16].
Of course, the excess electricity from PV generation can be sold to
government by connecting to the electric grid. Fig. 2 shows two types of
PV greenhouse, where PV panels are laid on the greenhouse roof in
Fig. 2(a) and above the greenhouse roof in Fig. 2(b). According to the Fig. 3. PV shery.
literature [17], the total installed capacity of PV greenhouse projects
built and being built has already been more than 612 MW in China by
May 2014.
Solar radiation meter
2.2. PV breeding
Charge controller
To improve traditional breeding, PV power plant can be built above
shing pond or on the roof of breeding buildings to provide green Solar panels Inverter
energy. Fig. 3 shows a mode of PV shery in China, which combines the Clarifier Effluent
distributed PV power generation and shery together. The mode can
improve the land usage eciency and increase land productivity per
Mixer
unit area, by establishing PV panels above the water surface and Influent Wastewate
breeding shes and shrimps under water. Additionally, a 3 kW PV r
power plant installed on the roof of fox nest buildings provided Brush Feed
electricity for air conditioning to improve the survival rate of foxes, pump
and it produces 88 MWh PV power and saves 35.2 t of standard coal DO sensor Oxidation ditch
over the lifetime of 25 years [18]. Also, a grid connected PV system was ORP
presented for a dairy farm with 26 cows in Mitidja, with the installed Fig. 4. Schematic diagram of a PV wastewater purication system [24].
capacity of 23 kWp, total power generation of 37 MWh, 8.6 MWh for
milking and housing, as well a net annualized surplus electricity of COD/(g MLSSday), 32 mg NH4+-N/(g MLSSday), 44 mg TN/(g
26.45 MWh [19]. According to the literature [20], the total installed MLSSday) and 5 mg TP/(g MLSSday). Currently, more and more
capacity of shing light complementary PV projects built and being PV wastewater treatment projects have emerged in China, such as
built has already been up to 1.21 GW in China by July 2016. Yangzhou 9.7 MW PV wastewater treatment project and Taizhou 5 MW
PV wastewater treatment project [25,26], and the total installed
2.3. PV wastewater purication capacity will be about 60 MW for PV wastewater treatment projects
in China by 2020.
The current environmental pollution has become increasingly
serious in rural areas, and wastewater or sewage is one of the major
problems [21,22]. Ma et al. [23] concluded that excessive emissions of 2.4. PV water pumping
agricultural pollutants, including COD, TN, and TP, have played a
critical inuence on water pollution in China. However, solar waste- PV water pumping technology is regarded as a sustainable and
water purication system can utilize PV power generation in the economical solution to provide water for irrigation, which can halt
process of wastewater treatment, and there are no pollution and energy grassland degradation and promote farmland conservation in China
transfer in this process. Fig. 4 shows an integrated system utilizing PV [27]. Fig. 5 shows a PV water pumping system served for irrigation and
system for wastewater treatment [24]. Without storage battery, the water supplies in rural and remote areas [28]. Chandel et al. [29]
oxidation ditch driven by the PV system worked during daytime and reviewed that the system has some advantages of saving operating costs
stopped at night, which was favorable to nitrogen and phosphate and achieving zero emissions of CO2 in comparison to traditional
removal from the wastewater. And according to the experimental pumping machines based on electricity or diesel system, and the
results, the system achieved average removal eciency of 88% COD, investment payback period is 46 years for this PV pumping system.
98% NH4+-N, 70% TN and 83% TP, under the loading rates of 140 mg Campana et al. [30] analyzed that the payback period of PV water

Fig. 2. Agricultural PV greenhouse.

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PV arrays
Water hose
Storage
Controller
tank
Power
Submersible
Well Motor-Pump
Fig. 5. Schematic diagram of a PV water pumping system [28].
pumping system varies between 5 and 14 years with the PV module
price ($0.82.0/Wp) at the lowest forage price, while the payback
period varies between 2 and 5 years at the highest forage price. Now PV
water pumping systems with the installed capacity of more than
280 kW have been built to supply water for people and livestock in
villages and pastures and irrigate farmland and grassland in the vast
remote rural areas of China [31], and the installed capacity will reach
6 MW by 2018.
2.5. Rural solar power station
Enhancing rural electrication rate is a main target to improve the
living quality of rural population in China or other developing
countries. Although the rural electrication rate has exceeded 99%,
there are still 256 towns, 3817 villages, 936,000 households or 3.87
million of rural population, having no access to electric power supply in
remote rural areas in China by July 2012 [32]. In the remote rural
areas, PV power station is particularly suitable for the solution to no
electricity due to uneasy access of power grid or electricity shortage due
to unreliable service [33,34]. Fig. 6 shows the o grid AC and DC
powered home lighting pattern in the rural areas [35]. In 2002, the
NDRC initiated the Township Electrication Program to provide
electricity in poor and remote regions of western China, where 688
towns were targeted to set up PV power stations with a total installed
capacity of 20 MW and a total investment of $0.71 billion [36].
According to the literature [37], the installed capacity of the distributed
PV station for rural electrication is up to 1 GW in 2015 and will be up
to 10 GW in 2020.
2.6. Summary
The main application modes of PV agriculture are PV agricultural
greenhouse, PV breeding, PV wastewater purication, PV water
pumping and rural solar power station. In recent years, these modes
have been vigorously popularized and applied in China.
Fig. 6. (a) O-grid AC solar power systems for normal AC appliances. (b) O-grid DC solar power systems for only DC appliances [35].
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Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 73 (2017) 19
3. Signicance of PV agriculture in China
China is always facing severe energy shortage due to very large
energy consumption for rapid economic growth, as well serious
environmental pollution due to production and consumption of non-
renewable energy. PV applications in agriculture have unparalleled
advantages.
3.1. Alleviation of the contradiction between more population and
less land
PV agricultural greenhouse power generation system, installed on
or above the roof of agricultural greenhouse, can save land resources
because it does not occupy land and change the nature of land usage.
This system can play an active and eective role in the relative
reduction of arable land with the increasing population. Dupraz et al.
[38] concluded that PV greenhouse maximizes the land usage, the
overall land productivity as high as 6070% when authors evaluated a
combined system of PV panels and crops through simulations based on
a PV radiation interception model and a crop model.
3.2. Promotion of the construction of new socialist countryside
The Fifth Plenary Session of the 16th CPC Central Committee
proposed to build a new socialist countryside with prosper economy,
perfect facilities, beautiful environment, civilization and harmony,
which is inevitable requirement for the construction of well-o society
[39]. PV system has been applied to rural sewage or wastewater
treatment, rural road lighting, agricultural irrigation, household light-
ing, greenhouses, rural infrastructure construction, etc [11,40,41].
Because PV solar energy has advantages of low energy consumption,
energy saving and environmental protection, using PV system can not
only eectively solve the basic energy consumption in rural areas, but
also help to gradually improve the ecological environment and power-
fully promote the socialist spiritual civilization.
3.3. Growth of economic returns for farmers
PV system can be built in the open space or on the roof of building,
directly output electricity for agricultural production activities, and
save the cost of electricity transmission, as well the excess electricity
can be fed into the national electric grid. It is reported that a farmer can
obtain extra economic return of about $900 per month with grid
connected PV power generation of 5 kW on a house roof [42].
Meanwhile, according to the current conversion eciency, a PV power
generation system of 200 kW, built on a greenhouse with land acreage
of 0.47 hm2, will generate electricity of 0.28 million kWh per year with
at least $45,200, also crops income will amount to $26,340 if the crops
prot is calculated by $3,763 per year. It is obvious that the PV
greenhouse has higher return than the traditional greenhouse. Fathoni
et al. [43] presented that the pre-tax internal rate of return of PV
investment may be more than 10%, the payback period is about 10
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years. The literature [44] reported the economic returns may be up to
$25,420 including power generation income of $13,458 per year and
agricultural net income of $11,962 for a 75 kW PV system on the roof
of greenhouse of 1000 m2, with the total investment of $120 thousand
including greenhouse and PV power generation system. Therefore, PV
system will greatly improve the lives of farmers in remote rural areas
according to the considerable incomes from agricultural products and
PV electricity generation.
3.4. Improvement of environment
China promises that greenhouse gas emissions per unit of GDP will
drop 6065% by 2030 in comparison to that in 2005 [45]. But
agricultural greenhouse gases emissions have been estimated at 11%
of China's national emissions [46]. Therefore, it has signicance in the
development of low carbon agriculture and green agriculture in China.
The combination of PV system and agriculture can make signicant
contribution to reduce emissions and improve environment. Breyer
et al. [47] summarized that PV has been a key technology to success-
fully ght against climate change. As mentioned above, the project with
the installed capacity of 3 kW PV system can save coal of 35.2 t and
reduce CO2 emissions of 91.4 t and sulfur dioxide of 0.77 t, nitride of
0.35 t and dust of 0.6 t over the system lifetime of 25 years [18].
Similarly, Nacer et al. [19] reported that a PV system with an installed
capacity of 23 kWp can mitigate greenhouse gases of 554 t over the
system lifetime.
3.5. Summary
It has vast importance to develop PV agriculture in China, because
Table 2
The support policies for China's PV industry in 2013.
Issuing time Policies
Mar. 1 Comments on the service work of grid connection of the
distributed power
Jun. 16 Scheme of the demonstration zones of the distributed PV power
generation
Jul. 15 A number of opinions on promoting the healthy development of
PV industry
Jul. 18 Interim measures for the management of distributed power
generation
Jul. 24 Notice of relevant issues on the execution of electricity subsidy
policy for the distributed PV power generation
Aug. 9 Notice on the construction of the application demonstration
zones for the distributed PV power generation
Aug. 22 Opinion on supporting the financial services for the distributed
PV power generation
Aug. 26 Notice on boosting the healthy development of PV industry by
the use of price leverage
Aug. 30 Notice of relevant issues on the adjustment of electricity price
standard added of renewable energy and electricity price of
environmental protection
Sept. 17 The specification conditions of PV manufacturing industry
Sept. 24 Interim measures for the project management of PV power
station
Sept. 29 Notice of the VAT policy of PV generation
Oct. 11 Interim measures of the specification of the bullet management
in PV industry
Nov. 18 Notice on interim measures of the issuance of project
management for the distributed PV generation
Nov. 19 Notice of the relevant issues on exemption from government
funds for self-generation and self-use electricity of distributed PV
power generation
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 73 (2017) 19
PV agriculture can eectively alleviate the contradiction between more
population and less land, powerfully promote the CEA development,
evidently increase economic benets of farmers, and signicantly
improve environment.
4. Opportunities for China's PV application in agriculture
4.1. Policies about PV industry in China
Since the promulgation of the People's Republic of China's
Renewable Energy Law in 2005, China hardly published other incen-
tive policies to support domestic PV industry. It is a very important
reason why the domestic PV market is rather small and most PV
products depend extremely on exports. But from 2012, PV industry has
been incorporated into one of the strategic emerging industries, and a
series of support policies have been issued for activating the domestic
market.
In 2013, the State Council and the relevant departments issued a
series of support polices of PV industry, and Table 2 shows 16
important policies. From Table 2, we can nd that, since July 2013
when the State Council promulgated A number of opinions on
promoting the healthy development of PV industry, proposing the
total installed capacity of 35 GW or more to 2015, other 12 important
policies issued densely within 5 months, involving industry positioning,
layout, pricing, taxation planning, investment, nancing, and so on,
which forms a complete industry policies and management system. In
2014, 26 important policies listed in Table 3 were introduced to
activate and normalize the domestic PV market further, including grid
connection, nancial services, amount and ways of VAT incentives and
subsidy. Of course, many provinces have been responding actively to
Issuing Policy highlights
agency
SGCC Serve the distributed power generation projects at 10 kV and below voltage
levels for grid connection
NEA Set up some demonstration zones of the distributed PV power generation
The State Claim clearly the scale of PV market, the standardization of development
Council order and the improvement of management and service of grid connection,
etc.
NDRC Clear specifications on project construction management, grid connection,
operation management of the distributed generation, and set up management
systems of PV generation projects.
MOF Perfect the subsidy payment and transfer mechanism, and ensure that the
state's subsidy funds are paid to the project units in time and in full
NEA Expand application markets of the distributed PV generation, and confirm the
first-batch sheet of the demonstration zones according to the implementation
plans of the demonstration zones submitted by the related provinces
NEA CDB Provide special financial services for the distributed PV generation projects
NDRC Render electricity subsidy of $0.063/kWh for the distributed PV power
generation
NDRC Add the renewable energy electricity price of 0.23 cents/kWh, and ensure that
the subsidy funds will not be insucient in the end of 2015
MIIT Specify the production layout and project establish, the production scale and
process technique, the comprehensive utilization of resources and energy
consumption and so on
NEA Specify the project management for PV power station
MOF Set the VAT levied immediately returned 50%
MIIT Accelerate the implementation of The specification conditions of PV
manufacturing industry
NEA Specify the project management for distributed PV power generation
MOF Exempt from 4 government funds for the self-generation and self-use of
distributed PV power generation
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Table 3
The support policies for China's PV industry in 2014.

Issuing time Policies Issuing agency Policy highlights

Jan. 17 Notice on issuing the annual new added scale of PV power NEA Plan the total installed capacity of 14.05 GW in 2014, where the
generation in 2014 distributed station of 800 MW
Jan. 20 Notice on issuing the directive opinions of energy work in 2014 NEA Propose the objectives and tasks for energy work in 2014
Feb. 8 Implementation opinion on strengthening the inspection and CAAPRC, NEA Strengthen the system construction of inspection and
verification for PV products certification system for PV products
Feb. 26 Notice on organizing and recommending key projects of PV MIIT, CDB Support the development of key projects of PV industry
industry in 2014
Feb. 28 Interim measures for the supervision of grid connection of the NEA Normalize new-built (including expansion and alteration)
new-built power supply power supply access to power grid system
Mar. 10 Notice of the work scheme on strengthening the information NEA Strengthen the information monitoring for PV industry
monitoring for PV industry
Apr. 9 Notice of the relevant matters on determining the license NEA Determine the license management for power business
management of power business
May 12 Energy supervision action plan (20142018) NEA Clear the objectives, key tasks and the related measures of
energy monitoring in the next five years
May 20 Notice on strengthening the information statistics and NEA Clear management needs of information statistics, submission
submission for PV generation projects and operating scheme of subsidy directory of PV power
generation projects
Jun. 6 Notice on strengthening the construction of information NEA Establish the system of information statistics and monitoring
statistics and monitoring of new energy demonstration cities for new energy demonstration cities
Jun. 30 Notice on recommending the demonstration zones of the NEA Recommend a number of the demonstration zones of the
distributed PV power generation distributed PV power generation
Aug. 20 Directory of encouraging industries in the western region NDRC Construct PV power generation system in some provinces
Sept. 1 Notice of the relevant works on doing well the special MOF Support energy-type emerging industry projects including the
investment of strategic emerging industries (energy) in the distributed PV power generation projects in the form of
central budget in 2015 subsidies
Sept. 2 Notice of the related policies on implementing the distributed MIIT Promote the diversified development of PV power generation,
PV power generation further and enlarge its market scale
Sept. 10 Notice of the related requires on accelerating the development NEA To foster a number of the application demonstration zones on
of the application demonstration zones of the distributed PV the basis of the existing distributed PV power generation
power generation projects
Oct. 9 Notice on strengthening PV station construction and operation NEA Normalize the construction and operation of PV power plants,
management further and increase their utilization efficiency
Oct. 11 Notice of issuing on the working scheme of the implementation SLGOPAD, NEA Increase the installed number of distributed PV in poor
of the PV poverty alleviation projects counties, on barren hills and slopes in the poverty areas, or on
agricultural greenhouse
Oct. 12 Notice of the special supervision of investment and development NEA Specify the development order for new power projects
of new-built power projects
Oct. 15 Notice on increasing the annual construction scale of PV NEA Specify the new-added scale for PV generation of total 1 GWh in
generation in Xinjiang in 2014 southern Xinjiang
Oct. 29 Notice of normalizing the development orders for the PV power NEA Strengthen the project management of PV power plant, and
station exclude speculation during investment
Nov. 19 Strategic action plan for energy development (20142020) GOSC Clear the general strategy and guideline in the next period of
time, and the ratio of non-fossil energy consumption up to 15%
by 2020
Nov. 21 Notice on promoting the construction of the application NEA Announce the first 30 demonstration zones of distributed PV
demonstration zones for distributed PV power generation power generation applications
Dec. 16 Notice on doing well the formation of "Thirteen Fifth-Plan" for NEA Do well the formation of 13th Five-Plan of the national solar
solar energy development energy development
Dec. 16 Notice of doing well the grid connection for the PV power NEA Further do well grid connection of PV power generation
generation projects in 2014
Dec. 30 Opinion on optimizing PV enterprises market through merger MIIT Make PV enterprises excellent and strong through mergers and
and recombination further recombination
Dec. 31 Notice on issuing the scheme of the "leader" system about NDRC, MOF, MIIT, NGOA, Focus on promoting energy saving technology, rather than
energy efficiency NEA, SAPRC, SAQSIQ simply stimulating consumption

promulgate some rules to support and implement the relevant polices,
but not listed here.
4.2. Opportunities for PV agriculture
4.2.1. Policy support
In February 2012, MIIT issued the Twelfth Five-Year Plan of solar
PV industry to promote the sustainable development of PV industry,
and the Plan specied that the power generation mode based on solar
PV agricultural greenhouse can be supported by the state nancial
subsides [48]. On July 15, 2013 (see Table 2), the State Council noticed
that the central nancial funds must be improved to support the
development of PV industry, the applications of PV power generation
should be supported increasingly in rural and pastoral areas, and the
construction of PV power generation projects should be conducted
gradually in non-electricity areas, which reects China's determination
to develop PV agriculture. Especially, NEA and SCPAO issued Notice
of issuing on the working scheme of the implementation of the PV
poverty alleviation projects on October 11, 2014 (see Table 3). The
projects are carried out by installing the distributed PV system for poor
families in poor counties of more than 30, by building PV power plants
at barren hills and slopes in poor areas or on agricultural greenhouses.
And the installed capacity will be up to 1.4 GW in 6 years, which could
bring the electricity income of $0.151 billion per year for poor families.
Especially, the NDRC and other four ministries issued a document to
promote the total scale of PV poverty alleviation up to 15 GW and the
total scale of distributed PV installed capacity up to 75 GW in 2020
[49]. Therefore, the above target will be completed only when PV

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agriculture, as the important component of the distributed PV power
station, is only vigorously developed.
4.2.2. Rural electrication construction
With the construction of the new socialist countryside, the rural
electricity market is potential in China. According to the SGCC's plan,
the average electricity consumption per capita will reach 450 kWh in
county and countryside in 2020, equivalent to 3 times in 2005 [50]. In
addition, although the electrication rate is almost 100% in the eastern
and central parts of China, as well the urban areas of western parts of
China, there are many un-electried townships, villages, and house-
holds in remote and rural areas of western China [51], and 3.87 million
population still have no access to electric power supply by July 2012
[32]. It results in technical and nancial challenges for electrication
with the extension of power grids due to highly dispersed population
causing by high mountains, plateau and desert. Zhang and Kumar [52]
cited that the cost of grid extension is about $5000-$12,750/km. In
2015, the No. 1 document by the central government pointed out that,
according to local conditions, the PV power supply mode can be applied
to solve electricity consumption for no electricity population [53].
Therefore it is optimal option to have access to electricity in remote
rural areas of western China by creating isolated o-grid power
generation systems based on locally available solar energy resources.
4.2.3. Development of CEA in China
CEA provides a solution to environmental control for food produc-
tion by modifying some environmental factors such as light, tempera-
ture, humidity, root zone environment, etc. Recently, China pays high
attention to the CEA to improve crops yield and increase the land use
eciency with high quality and sustainability, especially on non arable
land such as saline, gobi and desert. In 2013, the No. 1 document by
the central government proposed to increase the development of
modern agriculture and the construction of standard vegetable gardens
[54]. Fig. 7 shows the application acreage of CEA in China in recent
years [55]. By the end of 2014, the cultivation area of CEA has reached
41,090 km2, but it only accounts for 3.04% of the total arable area in
China. The scale and technological innovation of CEA has laid the
foundation for the development of the PV agriculture, because PV
system can generate electricity with low cost on or above the roof of
greenhouses and provide electricity for planting, irrigating, lighting, air
conditioning and precision spraying in greenhouses. By 2013, China
had approved the agricultural and shery PV projects of 2.9 GW [56].
4.2.4. Electric demand of greenhouse machinery
Despite the increasing development of the CEA in China, the single
greenhouse area is limited and very small in rural area. Meanwhile,
agricultural machinery used in these greenhouses are powered by
internal combustion engine, and a large amount of harmful gases and
working noises are generated from the working diesel or gasoline
engine. It will make heavier pollution of the CEA environment, aect
the healthy growth of crops in greenhouses, but also damage the health
Fig. 7. CEA acreage in China in recent years [55].
7
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 73 (2017) 19
of operating workers in greenhouses. Therefore, it is necessary to
develop environmental friendly electric machinery for greenhouse
operations. Xue [57] concluded that small-sized and medium sized
(maximum 30 kW) AEVs based on PV system have signicant econo-
my. Redpath et al. [58] pointed out that utilization of 10 kWp PV array
caused annual diesel fuel of 4,200-5,200 L for a 10 ha vineyard in the
Mediterranean area. And Mousazadeh et al. [59] analyzed that a solar
powered agricultural electrical vehicle, based on the RAMseS project
funded by the European Commission under the 6th framework
Program, can avoid the emission of about 23 t of CO2equ per year
compared to a conventional agricultural vehicle based on internal
combustion engine.
4.2.5. Development of the relevant technologies
The development of the relevant technologies boosts PV applica-
tions in agriculture. Pandey et al. [60] reviewed that many researches
have been conducted to explore PV materials for solar cells to produce
electricity with more eciency and lower cost. Thin PV lm with
materials such as amorphous silicon, Cds/CdTe and CIS enhances its
conversion eciency, as well low cost and exibility in nature [61,62].
And solar cells with high transmittance of sunlight have been studied
and demonstrated [63,64]. Additionally, grid-connected technologies
for PV generation such as inverter topologies and control structure are
evolving to achieve high eciency with power output for dierent
power congurations [65]. Of course, LED technology can help to
promote PV agriculture. LED is regarded as ideal light source for
adjusting the light environment in the CEA greenhouse, due to energy
saving, long life and low GHG emissions [16,35,66]. LED lighting
combined with PV system has become the preferred choice to provide
articial lights during bad weather such as haze days and cloudy days.
4.3. Summary
Chinese governments at all levels have promulgated to support and
stimulate the domestic development of PV industry. For PV agriculture,
it has an enormous potential for the domestic development of photo-
voltaic agriculture in China due to powerful support policies, ourish-
ing controlled environmental agriculture, policy-oriented rural electri-
cation, promising electric machinery for greenhouse and continuous
develop of PV technologies and products for agricultural production
and farmers life.
5. Conclusions
Since the global nancial crisis and the anti-dumping and anti-
subsidy from USA and Europe, PV enterprises are facing serious
overcapacity situation in China. The key to breaking the crisis lies in
the realization of self transformation and the ability to get rid of
dependence on exports. Therefore, it is necessary to explore and
expand the domestic market and application elds. Green and sustain-
able PV power generation has been becoming a natural response for the
increasing energy demand in agriculture.
The large area of agricultural land provides huge market space for
PV industry, and the unprecedented support for agriculture in China
also lets PV enterprises get not only PV subsidies but also agricultural
subsidies. In recent years, PV agriculture has a rapid development in
China due to powerful support policies, ourishing CEA, policy-
oriented rural electrication and promising electric machinery for
greenhouse. The total PV market size in agriculture has more than
4 GW in China and will be up to 15 GW in 2020. In the short term, the
PV agriculture is an eective measure to solve the dilemma of China's
PV industry. In the long term, it has signicance in the transformation
of traditional agriculture to modern agriculture in China.
However, the more theoretical researches and practical exploration
of PV agriculture must be conducted to optimize the combination of PV
power generation and agricultural planting, including new PV materi-
J. Xue
als to meet the lighting needs of crops with high eciency and lower
cost, agricultural PV products such as LED, motor and charger, grid-
connected technologies for PV generation, and economic assessment
on PV agriculture. And the unied technical standards and manage-
ment standards must be established to standardize the design and scale
of projects of PV agriculture. Also, PV enterprises need to transform
and update, increase research and development eorts, and produce
widely applicable PV products for agricultural production and farmers
life.
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