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fees and compensation mechanisms change too much, causing an uncertain impact on income and electricity costs. A
step-by-step transition to the ultimate goal is more practical
than immediately selecting a highly sophisticated electricity-billing mechanism.
Gradual implementation can ensure the certainty and sustainability required by developing industries, such as PVs, while continuously improving the precision of projected electricity prices.
Therefore, the ideal progressive electricity reform should set a
five-to-10-year target and plan, which helps related industries
develop steadily. At the same time, the gradual reform should also
allow enough time for testing and fault tolerance to help regulators understand the electricity-pricing mechanism's impact and
make timely adjustments before full implementation.
Improve Transparency

Increasing the transparency of the rate and compensation development process can achieve multiple objectives,
including providing more information about the price setting, facilitating the work of regulators and third-party agencies, and supporting reasonable consumer decisions about
investing in and using PVs. Transparency is about the openness of data and methods as well as the development process.
Improve Regulatory Foresight and Stakeholder
Engagement

Regulators should take the initiative to raise and solve problems, anticipate and identify potential issues in advance, and
propose solutions through electricity-price-design analysis and
stakeholder participation. This forward-looking role enables
them to drive management transformation and achieve better
policy implementation in a systematic, strategic, and collaborative manner. In addition, the participation of all stakeholders has always been the cornerstone of the regulatory process,
and it therefore requires more active, in-depth, and collaborative participation.

Summary
China's PV industry restructuring in 2018 resulted in the
sector's transformation. The industry is currently undergoing an even greater transition from public subsidies to a
market orientation, although the government still enforces
provincial targets for renewable development.
After the implementation of the 531 New Policy, China's PV
industry faced dramatic changes because the new policy strictly
controlled and weakened the extent of subsidies. Through analysis and elaboration, this policy will likely encourage development and consolidation in the sector. As a result of the introduction of fair feed-in tariffs, the PV industry will be initially
weakened by the subsidies policy, but industry development is
anticipated to gradually stabilize. During the next two years,
the annual growth of installed PV capacity in China will hold
at approximately 40 GW, the market will be further integrated,
the issues of manufacturing overcapacity and electrical-hosting
limitations will be addressed, and innovation will rise.
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Overall, the 531 New Policy will have a positive impact
on the long-term development of the PV industry. To enhance
the competitiveness of the country's PV power generation and
achieve fair feed-in tariffs as soon as possible, the initiative
will help to improve PV manufacturing efficiency, lower electricity prices, and close outdated production facilities. Enterprises will accelerate the development of overseas markets,
where the PV upstream and midstream market demand will
improve. Through this reform, the transformation of China's
PV industry from quantity to quality will be accelerated.

Acknowledgments
This work was supported by The National Social Science
Fund of China (grant 19ZDA081) and Fundamental Research
Funds for the Central Universities (grant 2018ZD13).

For Further Reading
"Renewable energy policies in a time of transition," International Renewable Energy Agency, Abu Dhabi, United Arab
Emirates, 2018. [Online]. Available: https://www.irena.org/
publications/2018/Apr/Renewable-energy-policies-in-a-time
-of-transition
"Renewable energy statistics 2019," International Renewable Energy Agency, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, 2019.
[Online]. Available: https://www.irena.org/publications/
2019/Jul/Renewable-energy-statistics-2019
"Renewable energy policies and measures of China," International Renewable Energy Agency, Abu Dhabi, United Arab
Emirates, 2019. [Online]. Available: https://www.iea.org/
-policiesandmeasures/renewableenergy/?country=China
"Renewable power generation costs in 2018," International Renewable Energy Agency, Abu Dhabi, United Arab
Emirates, 2019. [Online]. Available: https://www.irena.org/
publications/2019/May/Renewable-power-generationcosts-in-2018
"Evolving distributed generation support mechanisms: Case
studies from United States, Germany, United Kingdom, and
Australia," National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL),
Washington, D.C., 2017. [Online]. Available: https://www.nrel.
gov/docs/fy17osti/67613.pdf
PV InfoLink. [Online]. Available: https://en.pvinfolink
.com/index.php

Biographies
Houqi Dong is with North China Electric Power University,
Beijing.
Bo Zeng is with North China Electric Power University,
Beijing.
Yuqing Wang is with North China Electric Power
University, Beijing.
Yingxin Liu is with the North China Electric Power
University, Beijing.
Ming Zeng is with North China Electric Power
University, Beijing.
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