Renewable Energy Development Project

Here is some good news for the renewable energy development providers.
The World Bank's Chinese Renewable Energy Development Project has backed the use of PV in rural China. The project design is based on a market-driven approach to renewables, which undertakes the following:
Focus on promoting commercial or near-commercial applications;
Combines international advances in technology with proven Chinese low-cost production capabilities;
Taps the large potential demand by lowering costs and improving products, system reliability, and consumer services.
The project aims to foster development of a sustainable market for PV technologies capable of supplying electricity in an environmentally sustainable way. This provides modern energy to dispersed rural households and institutions. To achieve this, the PV part of the project (the project also includes wind generated electricity) consists of the following two components:
The supply of a total of 10 megawatts via PV systems to 300,000-400,000 households and institutions in remote areas of six north-western provinces. A direct grant is provided to PV system companies to assist them to market, sell and maintain PV systems in Qinghai, Gansu, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Xizang, western Sichuan and adjacent areas. The systems are aimed mostly at rural households and institutions without access to electricity, to provide power for lights, radios, televisions, and other appliances. The companies that sell PV systems receive a grant of US$1.50 per watt of PV capacity for every system with a capacity of 10 watts or greater. This financial support helps local companies to improve PV product quality, improve warranties and after-sales services, strengthen business capabilities, and increase marketing efforts. The direct grants are complemented by support to the companies to assist PV market development. A Project Management Office (PMO) manages the programme, which works to overcome barriers and develop markets for PV through activities such as public information campaigns; capacity building to improve commercial capabilities of PV companies; a study to investigate the opportunity for increased affordability; market monitoring, obtaining feedback from producers and consumers; and other activities such as small-scale demonstrations in high visibility areas.
Support for technology upgrading to improve the performance and reduce the costs of solar PV technologies in China. Financial assistance to PV industries is provided through grant-assisted technology improvement projects, which share up to 50 per cent of improvement costs; production investment projects assisted by loans to help pay for production equipment, follow-up or other investments; technical assistance for program management and institutional strengthening activities.