EAPSI: The Role of China in Induced Innovations in the Solar Photovoltaics Industry

Lam Long, Pittsburgh PA

Investigators

Abstract

To address grave environmental concerns, the Chinese government has responded swiftly and aggressively by seeking to build domestic industries capable of producing and implementing new renewable energy technologies through various government support programs and policies. This project will investigate the role of these policies on China's photovoltaics (PV) industry, and how the emergence of China's PV industry has affected the innovation capabilities of the global supply chain. This research will be conducted for eight weeks in collaboration with Prof. Jianxua Xu, an expert in environmental and energy policy, at Peking University, Beijing. Results of this project can aid policymakers in analyzing policy options as the US seeks a balanced response to Chinese solar PV firms. Many authors previously examined China's solar photovoltaic industry and concluded that the industry has undergone dramatic transformation in its innovative capabilities. However, the market dominance of monocrystalline silicon, a technology first developed in the 1950s, and the recent well-publicized consolidation of the domestic industry suggest that China's PV industry has yet to develop the level of cutting-edge innovative capabilities suggested by others. On the other hand, the competitive nature of the downstream cells/modules segment of the supply chain, dominated by Chinese firms, may have induced upstream firms to find ways to satisfy the demanding, cost-conscious downstream customers. By bringing together data on the expansion of solar PV sales by firm and region, data on regional policies to promote solar power and solar PV manufacturing, and data on innovation activities in China's solar industry, this project will build econometric and engineering models to evaluate the importance of innovation in driving the expansion of the Chinese solar industry, focusing especially on the interaction effects of various segments within the complex supply chain. This award under the East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes program supports summer research by a U.S. graduate student and is jointly funded by NSF and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China.