China’s first photovoltaic power station was commissioned in 1983.
More than four decades later, China’s cumulative installed photovoltaic (PV) capacity has exceeded 1.2 billion kilowatts, retaining its global top ranking for 11 consecutive years. Over these decades, Chinese PV practitioners have leveraged technological innovation to dismantle the stereotype of PV as an “elite energy source”, rendering photovoltaics the cheapest, most mature and fastest-deployable power source worldwide.
Yet the second half of the journey has only just begun. Driven by surging demand for green power and multiple imperatives including energy independence and energy security, photovoltaics is marching toward the milestone of becoming a bulk power source. This time, the PowerMatrix architecture serves as a high-speed matrix bridge.
1. A New Starting Point
PV power has recently reached another landmark milestone.
According to the National Energy Administration, by the end of July this year, China’s installed PV capacity hit 128.6 gigawatts, comprising 70.4 GW of utility-scale PV and 58.2 GW of distributed PV. For the first time, PV installed capacity outpaced coal power (128.5 GW), making photovoltaics the largest power source in China by installed capacity.
This achievement carries substantial weight. It epitomizes the strengths of China’s full PV industrial chain and vividly demonstrates the resolve and outcomes of China’s energy transition. Photovoltaics has completed its identity shift from a supplementary energy source to the largest installed power source, marking a critical step forward in building the new power system.
That said, “the largest installed power source” is not equivalent to a “bulk power source”. Behind this subtle distinction lies a substantial numerical gap. From January to July this year, China’s PV power generation totalled 802.4 terawatt-hours, accounting for merely 13% of the country’s total electricity consumption.
The stark disparity between installed capacity and power generation share stems from the inherent characteristics of PV power. Constrained by day-night cycles and meteorological conditions, PV generation peaks at midday while dropping to zero during evening demand peaks. Such intermittency and volatility create major challenges for large-scale grid integration: they disrupt traditional power balance patterns, sharply raise requirements for frequency regulation, voltage regulation and backup capacity, reduce grid inertia and voltage support capability, and complicate frequency and voltage control. Simply put, grid stability and security face severe risks. Incidents of equipment disconnection at new energy power stations and large-scale blackouts overseas remain fresh reminders — this constitutes the core argument of PV sceptics.
Against this backdrop, the 15th Five-Year Plan period marks a critical phase for developing the new power system. The 15th Five-Year Plan for Renewable Energy Development, a guiding policy document, introduces for the first time credible output as an alternative reliability target. It mandates that by 2030, the average credible output of wind and solar power (including source-side energy storage) nationwide will reach 8% (roughly 11% for wind power and 6% for PV). New utility-scale wind and PV stations shall in principle achieve a credible output of no less than 10%, and projects with favourable conditions are encouraged to exceed 20%.
Take the national average PV credible output target of 6% by 2030 as an example. A 100 MW PV plant must deliver a steady power output of no less than 6 MW for at least 95% of the time during annual power supply guarantee periods. Clearly, installed capacity is no longer the priority; what truly matters is “how much stable power can be delivered when needed”.
Where do we stand today? Statistics show that conventional standalone PV plants deliver credible output below 2%. This imposes stringent constraints. Having become China’s largest power source by installed capacity, PV is only entering its real race.
2. Shifting Policy Incentives
Under the national framework, local policy incentives are undergoing continuous transformation. A recent Hubei policy sparked heated market discussion. The Power Dispatching and Control Center of State Grid Hubei Electric Power Co., Ltd. issued the Trial Guidelines for Source-Side Energy Storage and New Energy Stations Jointly Participating in Hubei Electricity Spot Market Transactions. One core provision states that source-side energy storage shall not be registered independently; it must form a combined entity with new energy stations for spot market declaration, clearing and settlement.
Likewise, Gansu issued the Gansu Electricity Spot Market Rules (V3.2) in March, stipulating that new energy stations participate in the market as an integrated whole. The charging and discharging schedules of on-site energy storage are incorporated into station declaration and dispatching, with optimized self-dispatching permitted within the station.
Hubei and Gansu are not isolated cases. Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Henan, Qinghai, Shanxi, Sichuan and many other provinces and autonomous regions have rolled out relevant policies and rules. All converge on one principle: integrated PV-storage systems shall operate and participate in the power market jointly, and this principle is evolving from pilots to regular practice.
The driving forces behind this trend are easy to identify. On one hand, PV generation peaks at midday, coinciding with periods of low electricity prices and squeezing revenue. Energy storage, acting as an electric energy regulator, becomes indispensable — and it is also one of the core technical pathways to lift credible output. On the other hand, a large volume of installed energy storage remains underutilized. Data indicates the utilization rate of paired storage stands at merely 31%, turning many storage assets into sunk costs. Under the combined pressures, the integrated development of PV and energy storage is poised for explosive growth.
PV-storage integration itself is not a new concept. The industry currently widely adopts AC coupling architecture, where PV and storage systems are installed separately and connect to the AC side via their respective inverters and converters. This configuration creates a lengthy energy transmission path for PV power to charge batteries: DC power generated by PV is inverted into AC power, routed through grid dispatching, then rectified back into DC power by the energy storage converter before charging the battery pack. Every power conversion step introduces additional energy losses. Furthermore, when PV power fluctuates, disturbances propagate to the AC bus and trigger voltage or frequency swings. The energy storage system detects such fluctuations and compensates afterwards. In this sense, AC-coupled PV-storage integration has room for optimization in energy routing, efficiency and response speed, failing to unlock the full value of energy storage.
“Transform energy storage from an external add-on into an inherent capability.” This year, a new product named PowerMatrix has emerged and been deployed in batches in domestic projects.
Developed by Sungrow, a leader in power electronic conversion technologies, PowerMatrix features an innovative architecture that integrates PV, energy storage, grid support and control functions into a single collaborative platform to reshape the logic of PV-storage systems.
Under this matrix system, PV arrays and energy storage are linked on the DC side via a high-speed bridge, both connected to a 1500 V DC bus before feeding power to the grid through matrix inverters. The native integration of PV and storage enables maximum value extraction from energy storage. In this PV-charge-storage setup, energy travels shorter paths with fewer losses to rapidly shift power and smooth generation profiles.
Combined with hierarchical collaborative control, the matrix system abandons the old top-down command model of centralized systems and deploys control capabilities down to subarray nodes. This enables millisecond-level response. While capturing high-price power windows to boost trading performance, the energy storage system can dynamically adjust PV-storage output per dispatching requirements and reduce deviation penalty fees.
Another breakthrough lies in native stability, enabled by the system’s reconfigurable energy paths and subarray-level autonomous grid-forming capability. The former supports more than 40 operating modes. Different power sources, energy storage, loads and grid connection states can be assembled into diverse energy flow paths. If one path fails, the system automatically reallocates energy flows, keeping PV, storage and grid sides operating collaboratively with steady output. The latter responds instantly at local inverter units upon grid disturbances: energy storage supplements power while inverters sustain voltage, suppressing fluctuations at the subarray level.
Evidently, these disruptive innovations respond to the true value of joint PV-storage operation: enabling PV-storage power stations to become tradable, profitable, dispatchable and reliable power sources.
3. A Shared Direction
The end of the 15th Five-Year Plan period will serve as a critical checkpoint for China’s carbon peaking commitments. To deliver on this pledge, new energy installation will continue to expand. By 2030, the total installed capacity of wind and solar power will exceed 2.8 billion kilowatts. Based on the 1.84 billion kW figure at the end of 2025, around 1 billion kW of additional wind and solar capacity will be added over the five years of the 15th Five-Year Plan.
Sustained rapid expansion of wind and solar power hinges on improved performance. Against this backdrop, policies and technology reinforce each other. Policies targeting credible output and joint PV-storage market participation are being tightened, while matrix inverters revamp PV-storage architecture. Both pursue the same core objective: to enable large-scale PV grid integration technically and facilitate PV’s qualitative transformation into a bulk power source.
For PV to become a bulk power source, one key metric is to raise equivalent full-load hours to roughly 2,500 hours. Matrix inverters support up to 260% oversizing of PV modules and 200% high charging power. This allows the PV plant to deliver power to the grid during daytime while rapidly charging energy storage to full capacity. After sunset when PV generation ceases, energy storage takes over continuous power delivery. Calculations show that this configuration can lift annual equivalent full-load hours above 3,000, rivalling conventional mainstream energy sources. PV plants evolve from merely generating large volumes of electricity to delivering stable, valuable power on demand over longer durations.
Crucially, this transformation must be economically viable — a prerequisite for large-scale deployment as a bulk power source. Beyond boosting plant revenue through joint PV-storage operation, the integrated matrix solution combines inversion and control functions, reducing equipment count and simplifying construction to keep upfront capital expenditure manageable. For a 1 GW project, matrix inverters can cut paired energy storage costs by approximately CNY 326 million and lift the project internal rate of return (IRR) by over 1.5 percentage points.
In terms of efficiency: on the PV side, each MW supports up to 28 MPPT channels to minimize mismatch losses. On the storage side, multi-stage state-of-charge (SOC) equalization raises usable discharge capacity by around 8%. Across the full system chain, two power conversion stages are eliminated, lifting energy transfer efficiency by 3–5% to realize end-to-end performance gains.
Cost control and efficiency gains go hand in hand with power stability. Returning to earlier discussion, the matrix inverter’s reconfigurable energy paths and hierarchical collaborative control guarantee stable power supply and on-demand power transmission. Its subarray-level grid-forming capability delivers voltage stabilization within 10 ms, effective inertial response within 5 ms, and black start for gigawatt-scale systems within 8 minutes, meeting performance benchmarks for grid-trustworthy power sources.
In summary, the march of photovoltaics toward becoming a bulk power source has officially started, driven by megatrend, policy mandates and the survival needs of new energy investors. The bridge is already built, and a new round of technological competition is set to intensify.