Chinese photovoltaic poverty alleviation: Geographic distribution, economic benefits and emission mitigation

As a part of an environmentally concerned development strategy, the photovoltaic poverty alleviation in China is adopted to lift households above the rural extreme poverty line by the end of 2020. With the detailed project level data in 534 counties, 22 provinces, this systematic assessment on Chinese photovoltaic power projects identifies geographic distribution, economic benefits and emission mitigation for deployment distribution and policy implications. Overall, the photovoltaic installed capacity has reached 5213.37 MW, with the income generation of 7.41 billion CNY per year and the carbon emission mitigation of 5.98 million tons. From the results in this work, it is obvious that the GDP and household savings per capita in most counties and cities are lower than in those without photovoltaic poverty alleviation stations. As an essential strategy of generating income and mitigating emissions especially in countries well-endowed with sunlight, the deployment of photovoltaic power projects is consistent with sustainable development goals relating to global poverty eradication. With the assessments on the photovoltaic power stations, the initial implementation of photovoltaic poverty alleviation revealed a number of problems and solutions, which are practical for systematic deployment and policy implications of relevant photovoltaic power projects worldwide.