China has increased its national goals for solar deployment, with the National Energy Administration (NEA) calling for 21 GW of solar electric capacity and 400 million square meters of solar thermal collector area by the end of 2015.

Initial documents did not specify individual targets for solar photovoltaics (PV) versus concentrating solar power (CSP). The NEA announced this and other renewable energy goals as part of the 12th Five-Year Plan (FYP) for Renewable Energy Development, as released on August 6th, 2012.

This is the second time China has increased its solar electric goal in the last 18 months, with previous targets set at 10 GW and 15 GW.

"China has focused its attention on renewable energy development, and used the Renewable Energy Law as a basis to create a series of policies aimed at supporting that development," stated the NEA. "The resulting rapid pace of development in the renewable energy industry has been a noteworthy achievement."

"Building on the foundation laid down by rapid advancements in renewable energy during the 11th FYP, the 12th FYP will develop renewable energy on an even greater scale than before."

At a symposium outlining the plan, the NEA argued for more distributed generation, stating that solar deployment should proceed mostly on a "local connection, local consumption" model. The agency also called for deployment of "smart power networks" to support new distributed solar.

These are ambitious goals. However, China's solar capacities have grown rapidly, with its annual solar photovoltaic (PV) market growing an estimated five fold in 2011 to over 2 GW.

China's solar thermal market represented 81% of the total global market in 2010, with 49 million square meters installed that year alone. The nation had 168 million square meters of solar thermal collectors installed by the end of the year.

The plan also includes goals for hydropower, pumped hydro storage, wind power and biomass, as well as development objectives, tasks and allocations for renewable energy development. Overall, the plan seeks total renewable energy production equivalent to 478 million metric tons of coal by 2015.

The nation's hydropower target has remained steady at 290 GW by 2015, including 30 GW from pumped hydro storage, with goals of 100 GW from grid-tied wind power including 5 GW from offshore wind and 50 GW from tidal power. Additionally, the NEA called for biomass equal to 50 million metric tons (MT) of coal, and geothermal power equal to 15 million MT.

The NEA states that this increase in capacities will be based on four areas of integration, including market mechanisms and government policy support, centralized development and distributed utilization, expanded scale and industry upgrading, and local development and international cooperation.

The NEA also announced that China will establish 100 new energy model cities, 200 green counties, and 30 new energy demonstration project based on renewable energy.