Evaluation of the PV technology for rural electrification improvement : China market focus

Energy use, especially electricity, in China is rapidly growing, but China faced two challenges in developing new energy supply: global climate changes and unbalanced economic development between urban and rural regions. Considering its geographical limitation and climate change problem, electricity generation using renewable energy source will be useful. Among various renewable energy technologies, photovoltaic (PV) is the most viable option for the rural electrification in China. First, sunlight, which is source of energy for PV, is sufficient in rural regions in China. Second, technically PVs can be installed in various sizes and can be applicable to individual houses or towns. Third, the cost competitiveness of PV with low labor cost and scale of business is achieved. However, low income of rural population and low level of awareness are barrier to implement PV system in rural region. To solve the issues Chinese government intervention is necessary. In this thesis, we first reviewed rural electrification with various angles - market, PV price, PV applications, and technologies. Then more specifically we researched energy usage, PV industry and PV market in China. History of rural electrification activities and results of them in China are also presented. We analyzed China's success and failure factors of rural electrification through the value chain analysis, Porter's diamond model, and system dynamics analysis. We suggested the business strategy as to the level of government intervention based on the analysis.

Department dc:contributor.department

Sloan School of Management.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2011

Author dc:creator

• Cho, Kyoung Suk

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Henry B. Weil.

• Sloan School of Management.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/65798

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/65798