Reduction of solar photovoltaic resources due to air pollution in China
- aDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544;
- bWoodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544;
- cAir Quality and Greenhouse Gases Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria;
- dAndlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544
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Edited by M. Granger Morgan, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, and approved September 27, 2017 (received for review June 26, 2017)

Significance
Enormous growth in solar photovoltaic (PV) electricity generation in China is planned, with a goal to provide 10% of total electricity demand by 2030. However, over much of China, aerosol pollution scatters and absorbs sunlight, significantly reducing surface solar radiation suitable for PV electricity generation. We evaluate the impact of aerosols on PV generation and find aerosol-related annual average reductions in eastern China to be more than 20%. In winter, aerosols have comparable impacts to clouds over eastern provinces. Improving air quality in China would increase efficiency of solar PV generation. As a positive feedback, increased PV efficiency and deployment would further reduce air pollutant emissions as well.
Abstract
Solar photovoltaic (PV) electricity generation is expanding rapidly in China, with total capacity projected to be 400 GW by 2030. However, severe aerosol pollution over China reduces solar radiation reaching the surface. We estimate the aerosol impact on solar PV electricity generation at the provincial and regional grid levels in China. Our approach is to examine the 12-year (2003–2014) average reduction in point-of-array irradiance (POAI) caused by aerosols in the atmosphere. We apply satellite-derived surface irradiance data from the NASA Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) with a PV performance model (PVLIB-Python) to calculate the impact of aerosols and clouds on POAI. Our findings reveal that aerosols over northern and eastern China, the most polluted regions, reduce annual average POAI by up to 1.5 kWh/m2 per day relative to pollution-free conditions, a decrease of up to 35%. Annual average reductions of POAI over both northern and eastern China are about 20–25%. We also evaluate the seasonal variability of the impact and find that aerosols in this region are as important as clouds in winter. Furthermore, we find that aerosols decrease electricity output of tracking PV systems more than those with fixed arrays: over eastern China, POAI is reduced by 21% for fixed systems at optimal angle and 34% for two-axis tracking systems. We conclude that PV system performance in northern and eastern China will benefit from improvements in air quality and will facilitate that improvement by providing emission-free electricity.
Footnotes
↵1Present address: Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Cambridge, MA 02138.
- ↵2To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: mauzeral{at}princeton.edu.
Author contributions: X.L., F.W., W.P., J.Y., and D.L.M. designed research; X.L. performed research; X.L. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; X.L., F.W., and D.L.M. analyzed data; and X.L. and D.L.M. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1711462114/-/DCSupplemental.
Published under the PNAS license.
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