Another Opportunity in China - Solar Water Heaters
2008-08-15

China’s solar water heater market

In many of China’s second, third or fourth tier cities, rooftops are covered by solar water heaters. The cheap, ubiquitous devices use the sun’s rays to heat water so that even rural workers can afford to take a hot shower after a long day’s work. In China, 200 million people have their water heated in this way, according to the NDRC. China has more than 50 percent of both the world’s production and use of solar water heaters. In the year of 2007, China solar water heater market grew at a pace of around 30%, with the annual output reaching 23.4 million square meters. Up till now, China’s total solar water heaters have covered approximately 108 million square meters. In 2007, China’s total sales of solar water heater stood at around CNY32 billion. China had more than twenty solar water heater producers with each having an annual output value exceed CNY100 million in the year. The government is also active in solar energy policy, mandating that China should increase its current 100 million square meters of solar water heaters to 150 million by 2010, and 300 million by 2020. 

The global market        

Let’s look at the global market. In the period 2005 to 2006, the total capacity of solar-powered water heater/ heating system rose 19.3% year on year. In 2007, the capacity of solar water heater/heating system rose 15.7%. When the discarded or eliminated heating systems were included, the year of 2006 had a total increment of 18GWth in capacity globally. Meanwhile, China’s addition of newly installed capacity rose 75.3%, ranking the first in the world in terms of newly installed capacity. China’s export of solar water heaters, boosted by international market, also had a rise. In 2007, China’s export value of solar water heater rose 28% year on year. The companies with big export value have set up companies in South Korea and Spain. The Local Manufacturers In recent years, the quality and technology of China's solar water heaters have improved continuously. We have put them into use on the solar hot water heating, solar seawater desalination, solar drying, solar pool heating systems, and other engineering. Up to now, there are more than 3,000 local solar water heater enterprises£¬ most of which are small and medium enterprises, hundreds of which are the backbone enterprises, more than 20 of which are large key enterprises. With the rapid development of industry, the leader status of large backbone enterprises has become increasingly significant. In 2007, there are more than the nearly 50 enterprises whose output value 50 million RMB, and 25 of whose output are over billion already. The future is bright From the perspective of some Chinese solar water heater producers’ performance, sales volume of that Solar Energy will keep growing. The growth of market sales was, to a great extent, attributed to more efforts made in market promotion. The rising cost of raw materials has put pressure on solar water heater producers to raise prices of their products, already the most expensive one among the three types of water heaters. However, energy prices still have room to rise in the future, which will bring more potential consumption demands to solar water heater. Although China still has such problems that it doesn’t have the policies like some other countries do for compulsory installation of solar products or subsidy granting, its solar energy producers are not equal in strength and its consumer-satisfaction degree is still not high, China’s solar water heater as the best applied product in renewable energy market in China will still have a bright future. Industry competition will intensify, but China’s solar water heater industry will become healthier after another round of reshuffle in the future.