By Wu Siya

BEIJING, Mar. 5 (China Economic Net) - “Rural areas account for more than 90% of China’s total land area, with about 220 million farmers. If farmers’ homesteads are fully utilized, the potential for photovoltaic installed capacity could reach 5 billion kilowatts, thereby driving investment of 12 trillion to 15 trillion yuan,” On the occasion of the 2025 Two Sessions, Zhong Baoshen, Chairman of LONGi Green Energy, emphasized in his motion.

Deputy to the 14th NPC, Chairman of LONGi, Zhong Baoshen [Photo/LONGi]

In the newly released 2025 Government Work Report, expected development goals in the energy field was released, namely a drop of around 3 percent in energy consumption per unit of GDP. To achieve this goal, proactive policy measures should be implemented accordingly. “Making coordinated efforts to cut carbon emissions, reduce pollution, pursue green development, and boost economic growth and accelerating the green transition in all areas of economic and social development,” the reported showed.

Zhong believes that accelerating the comprehensive green transformation of rural development is an objective requirement for promoting the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas. If to ensure a safe operation period of more than 25 years, there should be high requirements for the safety, hail and wind resistance, design and installation, and later operation and maintenance of the PV constructions. Besides, the overall aesthetics should also be considered to make it meet the construction requirements of beautiful villages.

In this regard, Zhong put forward three targeted suggestions.

“First, unified rural building photovoltaic standards need to be introduced as soon as possible, taking into account building safety, equipment selection, design and installation, operation and maintenance, aesthetics and environmental friendliness. Next, we should vigorously promote the application of key equipment products such as high-efficiency and quality components to improve the quality level of rural building photovoltaics. Finally, strengthen the supervision of the rural building photovoltaic market to ensure the safety and reliability, realizing the photovoltaic benefits to farmers in a multi-pronged way, namely promote the green transformation of energy while ensuring the reliable supply of electricity, as well as drive farmers’ income and employment.”

When it comes to rural building, Zhong further emphasized that future buildings should and must be products that combine power generation and energy-saving functions, as well as are deeply integrated with architectural styles and surrounding application scenarios, for instance, building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) make full use of the light-receiving surfaces (roofs, walls, etc.) to achieve the combination of green buildings and green energy, which is another vital aspect of his motion this year.

“At present, China’s energy consumption in the entire construction process accounts for 45% of the country’s total energy consumption, and carbon emissions account for 50.6% of total emissions, meaning the green transformation of the industry is urgent. Building-integrated photovoltaics, as an innovative technology that combines solar power generation with architecture, allows buildings to achieve energy self-sufficiency while also being beautiful.”

The CEN reporter learned that the BIPV building, built by LONGi and with a total installed capacity of 3.88MW, has made the first near-zero carbon park for international forums in China, Hainan Boao near-zero carbon demonstration zone, a benchmark. According to estimates, the project is expected to generate 114.68 million kWh of electricity in 25 years, reducing carbon emissions by 1.17 million tons.

According to statistics, China renovates and builds more than 1.2 billion square meters of roofs each year, which can install BIPV up to 240GW. There are also a large number of building facades that can be transformed into power generation walls. However, there are still some prominent problems such as low actual application ratio and insufficient public awareness, as well as the market potential of this field is seriously underestimated. In response to this, Zhong proposed specific promotion measures.

“During the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2-30), we need to set a BIPV development target of 20GW (based on 10% of the development potential) each year. Meanwhile, the BIPV standard system should be systematically improved at the national level. More than that, international cooperation could be strengthened to create the international competitive advantage of domestic BIPV industry with ‘Chinese standards going global’.”