Characteristics and prospective of China׳s PV development route: Based on data of world PV industry 2000-2010

China wishes to put more efforts in achieving its energy saving and emission reduction targets, for which photovoltaic (PV) power generation has showed great potential in many economic entities around the world. China also shows a strong sign of renewable energy booming: wind power and photovoltaic installed capacity soared in recent years. Actually, many countries around the world especially European countries have a longer history than China in PV application. But China has a unique energy industry development route, which may lead to a different PV prospective. To determine the uniqueness of China׳s PV development, data from China and 26 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries are collected. The Characteristics of China׳s PV industry is quantified and extracted in this paper. Indicators are selected from aspects of energy source, energy generation and energy consumption. Indicator distribution analysis, correlation analysis, and country cluster analysis methods are applied. 3 major characteristics of China׳s PV industry are extracted. Based on the key findings of this paper, it can be concluded that some inertial elements in the energy industry may be the biggest obstacles for China׳s PV development, and off-grid and distributed PV solutions are suggested to be better ways than concentrated PV power generation.