(Yicai) Nov. 22 -- China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has released a new, stricter version of its investment guidelines for photovoltaic manufacturing projects.

The minimum capital ratio for investing in PV manufacturing projects, including silicon wafers and solar cells and modules, was raised to 30 percent, the MIIT said in a revised document published on Nov. 20. Before, the ratio was 20 percent for all types of PV projects, except for polysilicon manufacturing ones, which already had a ratio of 30 percent.

The move aims to tighten industry regulations, accelerate the transformation and upgrading of the sector, and address issues such as disorderly competition, market volatility, and technological iteration, according to the MIIT.

Raising the minimum capital investment ratio will increase the solar industry’s entry threshold and control the disorderly expansion of production capacity, said Lin Boqiang, director of the China Energy Policy Research Institute at Xiamen University.

This year, many PV manufacturers reported losses. Therefore, the tighter regulation likely also aims to address the tendency of recklessly expanding production capacity, thus guiding the industry toward a healthier development, according to analysts.

The new version of the guidelines also raised the efficiency standards of new monocrystalline silicon solar cell and module projects. New P-type cells and modules need to have an efficiency of at least 23.7 percent and 21.8 percent, respectively, while N-type cells and modules must have a minimum efficiency of 26 percent at 23.1 percent.

In comparison, industry-leading N-type tunnel oxide passivated contact solar cells now have an average efficiency of 25 percent.

Moreover, the revision highlights several key focuses of the PV industry, such as intellectual property protection, green development, and corporate social responsibility.

As China’s solar industry leads the world, it is necessary to explore more unknown territories and make IP protection a more critical topic, said Liu Yiyang, deputy secretary-general of the China PV Industry Association.

The MIIT first released the guidelines for the PV manufacturing industry in 2013. Since then, it revised them several times in response to industry changes and market demand, including setting requirements for technological standards, capacity utilization, and manufacturing energy consumption.

Moving forward, the focus should be on enhancing the technological innovation capabilities of PV firms and accelerating infrastructure development to improve the capacity to absorb solar power generation, Lin noted.

Editor: Futura Costaglione