The sea light walks with it and is born to the sun. On China’s coastline stretching 18,000 kilometres, a new photovoltaic “blue sea” has been born.

In the past two years, China has established the goal of “carbon peak and carbon neutralisation” as the top-level strategic layout, and studied and introduced policies to guide large-scale photovoltaic power generation projects to use Gobi, deserts, deserts and other unused land construction, so as to promote the healthy and orderly development of the offshore photovoltaic industry.

Driven by national policies, coastal cities have actively responded to the “double carbon” goal and have successively started to focus on the development of the offshore

photovoltaic industry. Since the first batch of pile-based fixed offshore photovoltaic projects in Shandong Province in 2022, they have officially started.

Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Liaoning, Tianjin and other places have also introduced subsidies, support policies and plans for offshore photovoltaics. Wang Bohua, honorary chairman of the China Photovoltaic Industry Association, said that China’s coastline is 18,000 kilometres long. Theoretically, it can install more than 100GW of offshore photovoltaics, and the market prospect is broad.

The costs involved in the construction of offshore photovoltaic projects include sea area use gold, fishery aquaculture compensation, pile foundation costs, etc. It is estimated that the construction cost of offshore photovoltaic power stations is 5% to 12% higher than that of onshore photovoltaic power stations. Under the broad development prospect, the special environment of the sea makes marine photovoltaic projects face sea problems such as less case experience and insufficient supporting policies, as well as multiple technical and economic challenges brought by marine environmental risks. How to break through these problems has become the top priority to unlock the development and application of offshore photovoltaics.