Recently, the General Office of the National Energy Administration issued a notice on submitting pilot programs for the development of rooftop distributed photovoltaic power in entire counties (cities, districts).
The market instantly erupted in excitement. According to a research report by Tianfeng Securities, the potential rooftop area for BIPV (Building Integrated Photovoltaics) is approximately 1.23 billion square meters annually. Assuming a photovoltaic panel power output of 200W/square meter, the potential installed capacity is 245GW. Assuming a BIPV price of 5.5 yuan/W, the corresponding market size is approximately 1.3 trillion yuan.
The trillion-dollar market, coupled with policy support, is like adding wings to a tiger, attracting many related companies to investors.
Everything has two sides. While the BIPV market has broad prospects, rapid development is not easy. The biggest challenge lies in the fact that centralized photovoltaic projects are large-scale, allowing for large-scale construction according to the same standards and schemes, resulting in faster project progress and relatively shorter timelines.
Residential solar power systems are relatively smaller in scale, and each roof needs to be surveyed and designed according to the original specifications to maximize sunlight utilization. This makes construction slower and requires construction teams across the country, resulting in higher labor costs.
Currently, most companies involved in residential solar PV installations are small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), generally only having a certain level of brand recognition in a specific region, with relatively weak national influence. While Shanghai has many well-known installers that purchase components from top-tier brands and design and install systems according to customer needs, their brand recognition within the PV industry is not high.
Faced with a trillion-dollar residential PV market, leading companies obviously want to leverage their capital and technological advantages to grab a share of the pie. However, compared to centralized PV projects, which have a larger scale per project, they need more competitive products and solutions tailored to the needs of the residential PV market.
